


Operation Black Swan

by Meaghan, writeskatelive



Category: Figure Skating - Fandom
Genre: Ballet, F/F, F/M, Multi, figure skating, superhero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 17:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meaghan/pseuds/Meaghan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeskatelive/pseuds/writeskatelive
Summary: When Prime Minister Elena Ilinykh is kidnapped by the international criminal Sergei Polunin, Mao Asada assembles a team of six superheroes - Wakaba Higuchi, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara, Satoko Miyahara, Rika Kihira, and Shoma Uno - to Moscow to rescue her.





	1. The Special Forces

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my friend Meaghan for the prompt!

“Welcome, friends. Ah, I imagine you didn’t expect to hear from me. Consider it a wake-up call. It must be morning in New York, no? You were probably all sitting peacefully at your desks, saving the world like you always claim.”

The five delegates in the UN Special Forces boardroom shrank back as the chilling, thickly accented voice broke through the conversation. The massive screen on the wall, which had been displaying photos of a flooded village in Africa, flickered black, then suddenly showed a man staring straight into the camera. His black hair was long and dirty, but his beard was neatly trimmed, and he wore a pressed, clean suit. Tattoos ran down his arm, ending in a Russian eagle crest on his right hand, and one marked his temple like a bull’s eye. His eyes were like two black bullets, aimed to fire.

“You all know who I am. I am all you ever talk about.” He smiled, which somehow made him more frightening. “Oh yes, I know how much you love to gossip about me. I’m sure I’m the talk of the town in your precious little world. Sergei Polunin, the man who bombed Chechnya to start a war with Russia. Yes, your dreaded enemy, your worst nightmare. Murderer, smuggler, warmonger. But now I’ve decided to…turn over a new leaf, as you say. In a history of great men who crushed entire empires, no one will remember a man who dropped one bomb on a meager province. But they will remember the man who killed the prime minister of Russia.”

He reached down, and when his hand came back into view, he was gripping the long dark hair of a young woman, bound and gagged, her brown eyes huge with fear. A gasp rose from the delegates as they recognized her face.

“You know her, don’t you?” said Polunin with an evil laugh. “Elena Ilinykh, your pretty little prime minister of Russia. A beautiful girl with a head full of lies. You, with your evil Western ways, you have overrun everything and made a mockery of what Russia truly is. You murdered our good president, the only man who saw the truth in this bitter world. You say you seek democracy and human rights. Ha! Human rights are the great lie of this generation. Every worthless street rat thinks he deserves to be treated like a king. The world is standing on its head. Men kiss each other, women think they should be running companies, brown people are now the master race. People need order if they are to thrive. A strong man must take control and show them how to act.”

At his words, the woman started protesting into her gag and struggling against his grasp, but he held tight. “Really, I don’t want to hurt her. Truly, she has the body of a Cleopatra. Perhaps I will have a taste later.” He laughed, a sound like rocks grinding together. “Come now. Will she be so pretty when there is a bullet in her head?”

A collective shudder ran through the delegation, and the man smiled, as if he could see their fear.

“The decision is in your hands, delegates. I don’t ask for much. You know those lovely weapons you tested in Siberia last year? What were they called again? Oh yes, Operation Black Swan. A fitting name, don’t you think?” He leaned into the camera, and the dim light winked off his sharp teeth. “Your job is really quite simple. You will go to President Petrov—yes, the man who calls himself the leader of Russia—and demand he hands over the Black Swan weapons. Then you will deliver them to the following address: 25 Sinaya Street, Moscow. Yes, the Moscow in Russia. Of course, I will not be there. I would not be foolish enough to allow you close to me. I will pick them up when they are delivered, and then I will send your precious princess home. I promise, I will spare no expense on her return ticket. But please, don’t be rash. It will be cheaper for me to send her back without a coffin.”

Behind him, the woman’s eyes were furious enough to burn through the screen.

“And one more thing! I cannot have you dragging your feet. Too many times I have wasted weeks waiting for my delivery, only to be tricked. No, I am much wiser now. I give you seventy-two hours. Otherwise…I will have to pay for that coffin. Her life is in your hands, delegates. It is you, not I, who will kill her if you do not comply.”

Five grim faces looked up at the screen in the UN Special Forces boardroom as the message ended. The air was practically vibrating with tension.

“What the bloody hell was that?” said Mr. Christopher Dean, Britain’s delegate on the council. A former security agent, he had the look of an aging James Bond. “How did he get ahold of her like that? She’s a high-profile government officer, there’s no way—”

“Never mind that,” said the US delegate, the gruff-looking General Arutunian. “It’s hopeless. The place will be booby-trapped. We’ll be shot dead within five miles of his hideout. We might as well just blow ourselves up.”

“There is always a solution,” said Captain Moskvina. Russia’s representative was tiny and well over seventy years old, but her steady, authoritative voice and the three USSR Air Force medals of honor on her jacket spoke for her. “We are not leaving the Prime Minister of Russia in the hands of a terrorist.”

“So what are you saying, woman?” said Arutunian. “That we should just drop a bomb on every inch of Russia to get her out? We have no idea where this man is.”

“I’m saying we need to do our job.” Moskvina’s voice was calm, but her eyes pinned Arutunian to his chair. Small though she was, she was easily the most intimidating figure in the room. “We were appointed to protect the world from international threats like this. If we leave her with him, we are breaking our oath. Are you saying you wish to resign?”

“I’m saying I don’t want to get blown up!” said Arutunian.

“You’re all being ridiculous,” said Didier Gailhaguet of France. “He clearly said that he’ll let her go if we give him the nukes. So we hand them over, and he gives us the girl. Am I the only person in this room who thought of that solution?”

Four horrified faces stared back at him.

“Are you insane?” said Dean. “We are under no circumstances to supply nuclear weapons to terrorists!”

Arutunian frowned. “These Black Swan weapons were designed to deal with alien attacks. Moskvina and her friends seem to think little green men will come down to earth and slit our throats in our sleep.”

“With all due respect,” Moskvina said, without an ounce of actual respect, “there have been numerous reports of extraterrestrial activity in Russia over the past several years. We need to be prepared in case these forces are hostile.”

“Whatever, woman.” Arutunian sighed in exasperation. “These weapons would make the atomic bomb look like a Nerf gun. One of these could level a small country.” He glared at Gailhaguet. “But I suppose that wouldn’t matter to you unless that small country was France.”

Dean shook his head. “He’s clearly out of his mind. Even if we were to give him the weapons—even just one—what are the chances that he would actually bring her back alive?”

“We have to try,” said Moskvina. “We may not succeed, but I will not agree to fail.” 

Gailhaguet scoffed. “It’s a regional issue. Funny how the Russian is the only one who seems to care about it.”

Moskvina narrowed her eyes. “Prime Minister Ilinykh is not only my countrywoman, she is one of the world’s most powerful leaders, one we swore to protect. And she is a human being. I suggest you try being one sometime.”

Gailhaguet swallowed hard.

“I think we can all agree that stopping terrorists should be a top priority for the Security Council,” said Dean. “But we can’t be hasty about this. If we send in an army to extract her, he’ll kill her before we can even negotiate. If we’re going to get her out alive, we need a very small team, maybe only a dozen.”

“Six,” said Japan’s delegate, Mao Asada. As the youngest and newest member of the council, she had grown used to sitting in silence while the elders made decisions. But a promising idea had come to mind, and she looked up.

“Six,” said Mr. Gailhauguet. “You are referring to your human experiments. Your genetically engineered weapons.”

“They are not weapons. They are a unit of special forces, built for international crises such as this one. They have been trained. They’re ready.”

“And who are these soldiers the woman speaks of?” said Mr. Arutunian. “I never heard of any special forces unit from Japan.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about,” said Ms. Moskvina, just loud enough to be heard.

“These people,” said Ms. Asada, “are the brave volunteers who underwent modifications to become the nation’s secret defense system. Their bodies have been adapted for combat, but their minds are still human.”

Mr. Arutunian frowned. “And what can these people do, fly?”

Ms. Asada narrowed her eyes. “They control the forces of nature, sir.”

“Well, clearly this chick has watched one too many episodes of Sailor Moon.”

“Hush,” said Moskvina. “It’s not like you have any better ideas. In fact, I think Ms. Asada may have a plan. Do explain, Ms. Asada.”

She swallowed. “Well, as Ms. Moskvina said, there have been several extraterrestrial situations recently. One of them hit Sakhalin Island. As you know, the island is very close to Japan.” Arutunian rolled his eyes at the mention of the extraterrestrials, but Moskvina nodded, encouraging her to keep talking. “The top officers in the Japanese military had an idea. They wanted to create a new kind of soldier, one who could defend us in the case of an alien attack. We called it Operation Samurai.”

“Very original,” Arutunian muttered.

“We implanted six human volunteers with top-secret technology,” said Asada. “For example, one of them runs on solar power, and another is powered by the moon.”

“See, I told you,” said Arutunian. “Sailor Moon. Next thing you know, she’ll say they’ve brought Thor.”

“Well actually, one of them can control lightning,” Asada said.

Moskvina glanced sideways at Arutunian, hushing any further comment.

“And one of them has wings—we call her the White Sparrow. The fifth one has increased speed, eyesight, and balance. She’s one of our best agents.”

“And the sixth?” said Moskvina.

Asada smiled. “The serum didn’t appear to have any effects on him. But he is smart, and the team needs him. What do you say?”

“Forget it,” said Arutunian.

Moskvina clasped her hands on the table. “Why don’t we take a vote, then? Under current UN rules, four out of five parties must be in agreement. As I assume Ms. Asada will naturally vote in support of her own plan, that means we need three in favor.”

Arutunian scowled. “Don’t look at me. You already know my answer.”

Dean ran his hand over his shaven chin. “It’s risky. We have no idea where Polunin is, and even if we were to find him, I don’t know if Ms. Asada’s soldiers could hold him. I mean, if the UN can’t catch him, I have my doubts about sending six kids to do it. But if we come in with an army, we’ll make too much noise, and if we send a squad of regular troops, they’ll get butchered. This is probably our best shot at bringing Ms. Ilinykh back alive. So I’m in.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dean,” said Moskvina. “I too have my doubts about the program. I have not seen these soldiers, and I don’t know if they are capable of defeating Polunin. But I trust Ms. Asada. My vote is yes.” She took a deep breath. “If they fail, you may hold me accountable for making the wrong decision. I will take full responsibility for any crimes committed against Prime Minister Ilinykh that I did not prevent.”

“They’re illegal weapons,” said Gailhaguet.

“Actually, they aren’t violating any of the treaties,” said Asada. “They are not nuclear-powered, and the Samurai Accords state that we will only use them for international security, not warfare.”

Gailhaguet leaned back in his chair. “Alien soldiers? It’s children’s stories, all of it. If they want to get themselves killed, then go right ahead. I don’t care. In fact, it’s probably better if they get destroyed.”

“So you’re saying you support the plan to use Ms. Asada’s team to extract Prime Minister Ilinykh?” said Moskvina. “Well, that was unexpected. Thank you, Mr. Gailhaguet.”

“They’ll fail,” said Arutunian.

Dean checked his watch, ignoring him. “Seventy-two hours. We don’t have a moment to waste. Ms. Asada, I advise you to assemble your team quickly. I will contact British intelligence and see if they have any information regarding Polunin.”

“British intelligence?” said Gailhaguet. “I didn’t know Britain had any intelligence to speak of.”

“That’s enough,” said Moskvina. “Ms. Asada, my agents in Moscow will search for him. I have two promising new members on my team—Boikova and Kozlovskii—who will hunt down every lead they find.” She leaned in, grasped Asada’s hands, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “And Mao? Please be careful. Prime Minister Ilinykh is a top-priority official. But you are my top priority.”

When Asada had joined the UN as an intern seven years ago, translating Russian reports into Japanese, Moskvina had been her boss. It had been Moskvina’s idea to send Asada on field missions, and after Asada had taken down a few international jewel thieves and the occasional illegal arms dealer, she had been promoted to a member of the UN Special Forces council.

“Thank you, Ms. Moskvina,” Asada said. “I’ll bring her back alive, whatever it takes. I promise.”


	2. Meet the Samurai

When Wakaba walked into the headquarters of the International Center of Espionage in Tokyo, everyone was already in and working. Interns hammered away at their keyboards and answered phones while agents hurried in and out of offices to deliver reports. The building had been disguised to look like a Mitsubishi office, and Ms. Asada had done an excellent job at making sure no one was the wiser.

"Agent Black Bond!" Two big brown eyes behind thick glasses and a mess of shaggy black hair peeked over the nearest desk. "Welcome back. How was Boston? Was it successful?"

She laughed. "Shoma, you know you can call me Wakaba. We're safe in headquarters. And yes, everything is fine." She smiled, remembering the events of the past forty-eight hours. She had been called to the United States to work on a mission with Agent Wagner, the American master spy. They had located a ring of smugglers who had robbed the Smithsonian Museum, chased them to Boston, and single-handedly delivered all twenty of them to the police—bound, gagged, and scared out of their wits. "What do we have?"

Shoma turned back to the screen and pulled up the latest intel. He was tiny—barely bigger than Wakaba—and although he was in his early twenties, he had the innocent face of a boy in fifth grade. He always wore the same button-down shirt and slacks, in contrast to all the interns in neatly pressed business clothes or the field agents in skintight black catsuits. "Wait, what's this? It looks like word from our Moscow connection."

"Let me see that." Wakaba leaned over the desk, almost pushing Shoma out of his chair to see the screen. A message glared back at her: From: Moskvina, Tamara. Priority: Urgent. Subject: Black Swan.

"Black Swan," said Wakaba. "That's code name for Ilinykh."

"Ilinykh," said Shoma. "Isn't she the prime minister of Russia or something?"

Wakaba grabbed the mouse and clicked on the message. A single line of text ran across the screen: Contact Asada immediately. Tell no one but the Samurai. It's the Eagle's Talons.

The words struck Wakaba's heart with a cold arrow of fear. The first day she had joined the Samurai, Ms. Asada had warned her about the Eagle's Talons—one of the most wanted criminals in multiple countries.

"The Eagle's Talons?" Shoma frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Wakaba shivered. "It's Polunin."

"Polunin?" Shoma's eyebrows knotted together, and he rubbed his temple in confusion. "You mean the mob boss, fugitive, and black market arms dealer Polunin? Yeah, I know him. But what does that have to do with Ilinykh?"

"I don't know," said Wakaba. She had heard some stuff from Agent Medvedeva about Russia's new prime minister – young, gorgeous, and sharp as a tack—but as far as she knew, Ilinykh had no connections with any underhanded organizations, let alone international criminals like Polunin.

"I do," said a new voice. The doors to the headquarters glided open, revealing Ms. Mao Asada in a tailored red business suit. "Higuchi, Uno. Come to my office. We have a lot to discuss."

Wakaba startled up. "Come on, Shoma."

He tried to stand up, but he tripped on the wheels of his task chair and sprawled on the ground, the chair falling on him. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Wakaba grabbed the chair off him, then followed Ms. Asada past the rows of desks and down a hallway into the boss's metal-doored office. Shoma, dusty and disheveled, jogged in behind her.

There were seven chairs in the room—six on one side of the desk and one on the other—all upholstered in rich red-and-gold patterns, and four were already occupied. Agent Satoko Miyahara was filling out a ledger in small, neat handwriting, her posture perfectly straight, her ankles crossed. Kaori Sakamoto and Mai Mihara were playing Pokemon on their phones, but they quickly turned them off and blushed when Ms. Asada came in.

"Where's Kihira?" said Ms. Asada.

"Hanyu hasn't brought her back yet, madam," said Satoko, inclining her chin. "Last I heard, she was on a mission in Okinawa. He was dispatched to retrieve her, but as far as I know, he hasn't returned. Should I organize a search party?"

"Thank you, Agent Miyahara, but that's not necessary." Ms. Asada smiled. "I'm sure she is perfectly safe—in the seven years Hanyu has worked for us, he has never lost an agent." Her face tightened. "But we don't have much time to waste. It's a Level 9 situation."

Satoko frowned. "If it's a Level 9, we should be organizing a plan already. We can't let another minute pass—there are lives on the line, Ms. Asada."

"I'm well aware of that." Ms. Asada sighed. "Higuchi, Uno, sit down. Do any of you need some water? It is a highly distressing situation."

Wakaba took the chair next to Kaori, and Shoma sat beside her, still brushing dirt off his shirtfront.

"What exactly is going on?" said Kaori. "A Level 9 is an international crisis that endangers multiple continents. What kind of terrible thing could cause a Level 9?"

Ms. Asada started to speak, but the door flew open, filling the room with a blinding bolt of lightning. When the light cleared, Rika Kihira was standing in the doorway, lightning running down the side of her blue-and-gray party dress. Agent Hanyu stood behind her, panting.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, Ms. Asada," said Rika. "I came as soon as I heard. What can I do to help?"

"No problem, Agent Kihira," said Ms. Asada. "Come, sit down. We have a lot to discuss."

Rika took the final chair, on the far right beside Satoko, and folded her hands in her lap, lightning still trembling on her fingertips. Her code name was Grease Lightning for a reason.

Ms. Asada took her seat on the other side of the desk and laced her fingers together. "I'm sure all of you received the message from Ms. Moskvina. As you all know, for many years we have tried in vain to capture Sergei Polunin—the Eagle's Talon. Since the close encounter with Agents Medvedeva and Bobrova in St. Petersburg, he has gone underground, and we haven't had word of him in almost three years. We had hoped he had given up his criminal career, or perhaps died. But this morning, he proved we were wrong." She closed her eyes. "He's kidnapped Prime Minister Ilinykh."

Wakaba gasped. Kaori and Mai were clinging to each other, their eyes wide with terror. Rika's hand was curled into a fist, trembling with lightning. Satoko's face was drawn with deadly intensity, and Shoma just looked like a scared little boy.

"Kidnapped?" said Kaori, her voice shaking. "Why would he kidnap Prime Minister Ilinykh? What would he want from her?"

Ms. Asada frowned. "Many things. First of all, remember that Polunin was a supporter of the old Russian government—he was part of an elite class of influential individuals in the system. When the United Nations came two years ago and replaced the corrupt government with a democracy, he lost friends, colleagues, and most importantly, the Russia he knew. He was always a dangerous man, but now he is both dangerous and angry. He wants revenge on the new government, and I guess Prime Minister Ilinykh was the most powerful official he could capture. But it's not just about killing Ilinykh." She took a deep breath. "We think he may be using her for ransom so he can get his hands on Russia's arsenal of nuclear weapons."

"Nuclear weapons?" said Mai, clinging so tightly to Kaori's arm she left white nail marks in Kaori's skin.

"I'm afraid so," said Ms. Asada. "Polunin can't just be content killing one diplomat. If he kills Ilinykh, the United Nations could simply install another fair-minded politician in her place. He wants to obliterate the entire Russian government and ensure that the only leaders of his country think as he does." She frowned, muttering to herself. "A bunch of racist, homophobic misogynists."

"We can take him," said Wakaba. "Tell us where to go and we'll have him within a week."

Ms. Asada swallowed. Her eyes were wet, but her voice was strong. "We don't have a week. He gave us seventy-two hours to deliver the most sophisticated weapons Moskvina has designed, or he will kill her. So we need to capture him before then. As terrible as Polunin's previous crimes have been, they have never threatened the future of our planet as a whole. But kidnapping the prime minister of Russia, that's an international situation." She frowned. "We're talking about terrorism."

"Then we will find him," said Satoko, "and we will kill him."

"That's the problem," said Ms. Asada. "We don't know exactly where he is. He gave us an address to leave the weapons, but he didn't tell us his location. Boikova and Kozlovskii—two of Moskvina's best agents—are searching for any trace of him. In the meantime, we'll fly all of you to Moscow. It's our only chance to extract her."

Wakaba took a deep breath, hating the tingles running over her skin. "I'm in."

Satoko sat up even straighter. "It would be my honor to participate, Ms. Asada. I swear I will not fail you."

"I never doubted you," said Ms. Asada. "Sakamoto? Mihara?"

Kaori pried Mai's fingers off her arm. "Yes, ma'am." Mai just nodded.

"Kihira?"

Rika clasped her hands. "Of course, Ms. Asada."

"Uno?"

Shoma had been slouching in his chair the whole time, but suddenly sat upright, blushing. "Yes, Ms. Asada?"

"Will you accompany the other Samurai on the mission to retrieve Prime Minister Ilinykh?"

"W—what?" Shoma blinked and looked around as though he had just been woken from a dream. "You want me to join them?"

Ms. Asada sighed. "If I didn't want you on this mission, I wouldn't have called you to my office."

"No, no, you must have the wrong guy." He looked down at his hands. "I don't have powers like the others."

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Ms. Asada?" said Satoko. "As he said, he is not enhanced like we are. With all due respect, I'm not sure he is the best choice for this mission."

"Satoko!" said Kaori.

Shoma shrank further into his chair. "She's right. I'm just an ordinary person."

"Uno." Ms. Asada's voice was quiet but firm. "Every one of you has an important role in this team. The Samurai cannot exist without all six members. I chose all of you for your unique skills." She smiled. "We need you, Little Man."

"Y—you need me?" Shoma blushed harder, his eyes on the floor. "Okay, then I'm in."

"All of you need to believe in yourselves," said Ms. Asada. "Polunin will want you to fail. It's your job not to."


	3. Agent Orange Sky

“So how long until we reach Moscow?” said Kaori.

The six Samurai were buckled into the narrow seats of the fighter plane. It had been designed with careful attention to aerodynamics, every angle shaped for optimal speed, and there was even a cloaking mechanism to camouflage it when flying over war zones. Ms. Asada spared no expense when it came to protecting her best agents.

“About six hours,” said Wakaba from the cockpit. All the Samurai had been trained to fly a warplane if necessary, but Wakaba was the most efficient pilot in the group, so Ms. Asada had chosen her.

“I still don’t understand,” said Rika. “What does Ms. Asada think we’re going to do with this guy? She didn’t exactly give us a road map of what to do.”

Satoko said, “We’ve been training for this for years. She chose us because of our genetic enhancements.”  Her eyes flashed to Shoma for a second, then away.

“So we’re just supposed to zap him with lightning or something?” Rika snapped her fingers, creating a silver spark.  “I mean, I’ll bet I could hit him, but I don’t know, it just seems weird.”

“Whoa, watch it, Thor!” said Kaori. “I don’t think Ms. Asada will appreciate it if you burn a hole in the ship!”

It had been three years since Ms. Asada had started Project Samurai. She had recruited six young, able-bodied civilians for her experiments and paid them handsomely in advance. Three months later, she had six genetically enhanced agents: Black Bond, White Sparrow, Grease Lightning, Sunray, Moonbeam, and Little Man.

Wakaba, or Black Bond, had been rewired with the heightened reflexes of a cat. She could jump from rooftops and land on her feet, catch a grenade thrown at her head and fling it across a field, and take down a whole room full of bad guys in a minute. Her code name had originally been Black Cat, but she was a sucker for 007, and Ms. Asada didn’t mind.

From the delicate movements of her limbs to the clean, pastel clothes she wore, Satoko had completely inhabited the role of White Sparrow—in fact, most of the Samurai still called her by her code name even in casual conversation. Although the white wings on her battle suit were her namesake, her deadliest power was mental manipulation. Her small, dark eyes could slip inside the mind of the enemy and confuse them until they were on their knees, telling her every dark secret they held. It was also a frustrating talent for the other Samurai to deal with, because it made Satoko unbeatable at poker.

Rika had been only thirteen years old when they injected lightning into her veins (she had lied about her age on her application). She could conjure lightning from her fingertips and use it like a laser, and it was always handy on a dark night when Shoma had forgotten to buy batteries for the flashlights (which had happened once or twice).

Kaori and Mai were Sunray and Moonbeam. As their names suggested, Kaori relied on solar power to move at supernatural speeds, while Mai took her energy from the moon. They had been best friends from childhood, even before they volunteered for the project, and from the way they liked to cuddle in the same armchair and watch anime marathons on weekends, Wakaba was pretty sure their friendship had crossed into new territory.

And then there was Shoma. Wakaba still remembered standing in line with the other volunteers and wondering why Ms. Asada had chosen such a skinny, baby-faced kid to be a real-life superhero. The plan had been to turn every inch of his body into solid muscle with some type of serum, but when the procedure was done, Shoma was still as tiny and noodle-limbed as before. Apparently, the frenzy over the new Captain America movie had gone a little too far.

Wakaba glanced down at the GPS system. They were flying over China right now—still a long way from Moscow. It had been three hours since Polunin’s message had reached the United Nations, which meant they had sixty-nine hours to figure out something that sort of resembled a plan.

Shoma’s eyes were glued to an iPad-like device that received information from international sources. A dozen tiny windows on the screen flashed incoming data from the UN communications board, the Moscow police, the Russian security council, Interpol, several major news channels, Twitter trends on “Polunin” and “Ilinykh”, the top-secret email account he used only for espionage, and in the corner, a game of Mario Kart. He was sitting in the back with Rika, who couldn’t care less if he wanted to play a few games while saving the world.

“Anything back there, Uno?” said Kaori.

He startled, pausing the game and pulling up the BBC News page. “Nothing yet, Sunray.”

“Well, we need a plan,” said Wakaba. “We can’t just wander into Moscow asking every person on the street, ‘Excuse me, sir, have you seen a terrorist dragging around the Prime Minister of Russia?’ For all we know, he might be hiding somewhere in Siberia.”

“Wait,” said Rika, leaning over to peek at Shoma’s screen. “I think you just got a message.”

The four girls in the front all flipped around to look at Shoma, who was blushing like he’d been caught singing in the shower.

“Shoma,” said Satoko, “how long has this email been sitting in your inbox?”

“Never mind that.”  Rika grabbed the iPad out of his hands and opened the message. “It’s from an ‘Agent Orange Sky’.”

“That’s Zhenya,” said Wakaba. “Put her on.”

Rika set the iPad in the center of the plane so everyone could see Agent Evgenia Medvedeva, a young Russian woman with long brown hair. Usually her eyes were bright and cheerful, but today, her face was stern.

“Samurai,” said Zhenya, her voice monotone. “We’ve received word of a man fitting the description of the Eagle’s Talons in the town of Irkutsk.”

“Does he have Ilinykh?” said Wakaba.

“Our sources say he was alone. Two hours ago, a man stopped at a gas station in Irkutsk. His face was covered with a hood, but the security cameras picked up on a tattoo on his right hand of an eagle. And he looks about the right size.”

Kaori leaned forward in her seat. “What about the car he was driving? Did they get the license plates?”

Zhenya frowned. “We tried that. Boikova checked the plates, but it turned out to be a stolen car. The theft was reported yesterday.”

Kaori scrunched up her face, thinking. “Well, what kind of car was it? If we know what kind of car he was driving, we could just follow the car.”

“It’s a black Toyota sedan. We’ve already informed the police in the surrounding areas to watch for it.”

“But where is Ilinykh?” said Rika. “It doesn’t pay to go running after every black sedan in Russia if she’s already dead.” Mai flinched, and Rika blinked. “Sorry.”

Satoko pressed her lips together. “She’s not dead. He probably had her hidden in the trunk, gagged so we wouldn’t hear her.”

“That’s not much more comforting,” said Mai.

“She’s alive,” said Wakaba. “If he had killed her already, he’d want to brag about it.” She wasn’t sure if that was true, but it calmed her pounding heart.

Zhenya sighed. “I hope so. It’s a slim lead, but it’s all we’ve got. Wakaba, steer the plane towards Irkutsk. I’ll tell Ms. Asada where you’re going.”

“Okay.” Wakaba swallowed. “Irkutsk it is.”

“Land well outside the city, then hide the plane and rent cars,” said Zhenya. “Moskvina knows what you’re doing, but the people in Irkutsk don’t, and if they see a fancy ship like that, they might think it’s aliens.”

“Aliens don’t exist,” said Satoko.

Kaori waved her fingers in the air in front of Satoko’s face. “Ooooooh! We are the purple-skinned Martians!”

Zhenya laughed. “Moskvina keeps one agent in Irkutsk—her name’s Zagitova, code name Phantom Wolf. She looks like a kid, but she might be able to help.”

“We’re all kids,” said Rika.

Satoko wrinkled her nose. She was twenty and didn’t like being called a kid.

Wakaba nodded. “Contact her and tell her we’re coming. I’ll fly straight there, and we’ll have this sucker locked up in a couple hours.”

“Be careful,” said Zhenya. “I fought him a couple years ago, you know. He has powers like I’ve never seen before, outside of you. He becomes almost like a shadow. It’s hard to describe, and all the other agents thought I was crazy, but you’ll have to watch out.”

“Got it,” said Wakaba. “But if the agents think you’re crazy, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Polunin.”

Zhenya grinned. “Says the girl who flew a warplane straight into a den of terrorists and jumped out onto the wing to shoot them!”

Wakaba laughed. “But it worked! Asada said they wouldn’t expect a close-range shot, so that’s what I did!”

“I don’t mean to interrupt the sisterly bonding,” said Rika, “but the sooner we catch Polunin, the better. Wakaba, why don’t we head to Irkutsk, then talk after the world isn’t in danger of blowing up?”

“Of course!” Wakaba blushed. “Sorry, Zhenya. We’ll have plenty of time to talk after we’ve got Polunin in chains.”

“Technically,” said Satoko, “the world isn’t in danger of ‘blowing up’. That would be a level 10, and Ms. Asada said it’s a level 9.”

“Are you kidding me?” said Kaori. “When a scary guy sends a message to the United Nations saying ‘give me your weapons or I’ll kill the prime minister of Russia’, I consider that a level 10!”

“It doesn’t matter what they call it,” said Wakaba. “Ms. Asada taught us to handle every situation like it’s a global threat, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Good luck,” said Zhenya. “You’re gonna need it.”


	4. To Grandmother’s House We Go

The plane sputtered to a stop as Wakaba landed on the outskirts of Irkutsk. When she opened the door, cold air blasted her in the face.

“Bring your coats, girls!” she said, laughing. “It’s not exactly Miami Beach out there.”

Kaori giggled and stuck her head out. “Look, it’s snowing! There’s snow everywhere—come on, Mai, you’ve got to see this!”

Mai hopped up and squeezed in next to Kaori. She caught a snowflake on her tongue and grinned. Kaori took the opportunity to give her a quick kiss, and Wakaba stepped back, blushing but smiling.

Satoko zipped up her white puffer jacket, which was patterned with gold pineapples that didn’t match her stern demeanor. She started unzipping the other duffel bags, pulling out the coats, and tossing them at their owners. “Come on. We need to move.”

“What about me?” said Shoma as the jacket hit him in the face. “Should I come with you or stay here?”

Wakaba took her stylish blue trench coat from Satoko. “You guard the ship. No one should find it out here, but just in case, we should have a lookout.” She tied the belt, crossed the ship to Shoma, and whispered, “If you get bored, you can play Mario Kart. Just watch for messages from Asada or Zhenya, and keep something handy nearby.”

“Handy?” Shoma frowned. “Like what?”

Wakaba slipped her hand under her coat and pulled out a small silver pistol. She always traveled with one on each hip, not to mention the knives in her boots and the tiny grenade sewn into her collar. For a small-town mission like this, she could probably loan out one gun and make it out with no permanent damage.

Shoma’s eyes widened as she pressed the gun into his hand. “Are you…are you sure? I’ve never used one of these before.”

“It’s not that hard. If it’s a good guy, fire in the air to scare them off. If it’s a bad guy, fire at them. The head usually works, or the chest if you still want them alive for questioning.”

He swallowed hard, but she turned away and hopped out of the plane before he could refuse.

The snow crunched under the girls’ boots as they set out for town. Wakaba had hidden the plane behind a hill, so they trudged up the slope, then down towards the lights of civilization.

“Remember, we’re just looking for Phantom Wolf,” said Wakaba. “Our goal is to get in and get out as fast as possible, and try not to be seen.”

Kaori glanced around. “Um, Waka? I’m not sure if this is a good time to mention this, but I think five Japanese girls showing up in a Russian town might draw attention.”

“They won’t see us,” said Satoko. “We’ll go straight to Agent Zagitova and be gone before anyone notices we’re here.”

“Satoko!” Rika hissed. “People might be listening. We’re supposed to call everyone by their code names!”

Satoko frowned. “Well, you let me know if you see any spies in this ghost town, and I’ll wipe their memories.”

Mai nudged Kaori. “What’s gotten into her? She’s always the one telling us to play by the book.”

Kaori shrugged. “She only plays by the book when she likes what the book says. Otherwise, she forgets how to read it!”

“Now, that’s enough,” said Wakaba. “Good news: we won’t even need to go far into the city. Phantom Wolf lives with her grandmother in a cottage on the outskirts of town.”

“Sounds like a fairytale,” said Kaori.

Satoko said, “Except since when do fairytale grandmothers keep a top-secret agency in the basement of their cottage?”

Mai frowned. “Do fairytale cottages even have basements?”

“Come on,” said Rika. “Polunin won’t wait to kill Ilinykh until we’ve taken a crash course on cottage architecture.” To herself, she mumbled, “Am I the only mature adult here?”

Twenty minutes later, the girls stopped at a row of wooden cottages with thatched roofs. Wakaba knocked on the door of the fifth one, then took three steps back.

“You’ll want to stand back,” she told the others. “Alina’s grandma is a little…extra.”

The door whipped open, the knob striking the side of the house, and a dry, hard click rang out. An old woman in a tattered robe stood on the threshold, pointing a shotgun at the space between Wakaba’s eyes.

“Who’s there?” she barked in Russian. “Stay away from my granddaughter. Get out! Out!”

“Nana, it’s okay,” said a sweet female voice in Russian. The old lady stepped back, and a pretty young girl in a black tank top and leggings appeared in the doorway. “It’s the Samurai.”

“The Samurai?” The old lady frowned. “But they—”

“Hi,” Alina said in Japanese. She smiled, but her face was tight with apprehension. “You can come in. Nana, can you make some tea for the guests?”

The Samurai followed Alina into the two-room cottage. It truly did look like the dwarves’ house in Snow White. As they crossed the room, a fully grown Akita stood up from its place near the fire and ran anxious circles around Alina’s legs, barking at the visitors.

“Shh, it’s all right, Masaru,” said Alina. “They’re friends.”

Wakaba bent down to pet the dog, and it groaned in grudging defeat.

Alina pulled aside the small wooden table and the faded rug underneath it, revealing a rusty trapdoor. She took a key from a chain on her neck, turned the lock, and eased the door open inch by inch so it wouldn’t squeak. A row of stairs led into pitch blackness.

“By the way,” said Alina, “you didn’t happen to bring…Shoma, did you?”

Wakaba blinked. “He’s with the ship. Why?”

Alina blushed. “Oh, nothing. I just…wanted to make sure he was okay.”

Mai giggled, then covered her mouth with her hand.

One by one, the girls ducked inside. Rika closed the door behind them, and Alina flipped a switch on the wall. Two lightbulbs in the ceiling revealed a series of computers, metal machines, and a punching bag.

“Are you sure you aren’t secretly the Tomb Raider?” said Wakaba, laughing.

Alina shrugged. “It’s one of my favorite movies.”

“Look at this,” said Kaori, running to one of the machines. The screen showed dozens of fingerprints that constantly changed in pattern. “You’re creating fake fingerprints!”

“Don’t touch it,” said Satoko. Kaori pouted.

Alina dusted off the workout bench and gestured for the girls to sit. Mai had already plopped down on an overturned crate, so Wakaba, Kaori, and Rika took the seat, and Satoko leaned against the edge of the desk. Alina took the swiveling chair behind the main computer and spun around to face the girls.

“Ms. Asada told me about Polunin,” said Alina, twisting the end of her long ponytail. “When his car stopped at the gas station, my superior sent me to follow him. I chased him in a cloaked vehicle for an hour, but he got away.”

“Hold on a second,” said Wakaba. “What kind of superior would send you out to track down the world’s most wanted terrorist by yourself?”

Alina shrugged. “Tutberidze. It’s not the worst mission—she sent me and Zhenya into Palestine a few years ago with only two guns apiece. She says it will push us to become better agents, like her.”

“If I were you, I’d get a new superior,” said Wakaba. “So what’s the latest on Polunin?”

“Well, I lost him, but I managed to place a tracker on the car. He went to Ulan-Ude.” Her eyebrows knotted together. “I have a theory on why he’s going there.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” said Rika.

Alina laced her fingers together. “There’s a gala tonight in Ulan-Ude. It’s a gathering of the Russian Historical Society. But a lot of the members…they’re the old-timers, the ones who aren’t happy with the revolution. So I think maybe he’s going there to meet up with some of his gangster friends or something.”

“The Russian Historical Society?” said Kaori. “I read about them a while ago. They’re a rebel group, disguised as historians. Filthy rich and usually tied up in the mafia, right?”

Alina nodded. “We’ve tried for several months to infiltrate one of their meetings, but the security there is insane. Agent Kozlovskii—Boikova’s partner, the big guy—he tried to get in there and the door guard gave him a black eye.”

“They don’t sound like the friendliest people,” said Rika.

“This whole thing makes no sense,” said Satoko. “Why would he go out in public when he has the Russian government, the United Nations, and Interpol looking for him?”

Alina frowned. “It’s because he thinks he’s won. He’s not afraid of Interpol and company. He’s not hiding. He wants to be seen.” She bit her lip. “At least that’s what I think. But please don’t tell Tutberidze that this was my idea. She doesn’t like it when we make decisions without evidence.”

“Well, I think it makes perfect sense,” said Wakaba. “It’s the best lead we’ve got. We just need to figure out how to get in there. Preferably without the black eye.”

Alina smiled. “You’ll have a better chance getting in than Kozlovskii—people tend to be scared of a big Russian guy demanding to get into a place without an invitation, but they won’t think twice about a bunch of girls. Especially if they’re disguised right.”

“You mean like Ocean’s 8?” said Kaori.

“What’s that?” said Satoko.

Kaori’s eyes widened to the size of pot lids. “You’re telling me that you’re a stealth operative who specializes in stealing jewels and you’ve never watched the greatest heist movie of all time?”

Satoko wrinkled her nose. “I don’t steal jewels. I take them away from people who have acquired them dishonestly.”

Alina clasped her hands. “We need to hurry. I’ll go to Ulan-Ude with you to translate and help you get around the city. And I have some disguises here that you can try on for size. Does that sound like a plan?”

“All right, girls,” said Wakaba. “I guess we’re going to crash a party.”


	5. Butterflies

“Seriously?” said Satoko. “A k-pop band?”

Wakaba frowned. “We don’t have time to argue. Just put on the wig and let’s get this over with.”

“I’m not arguing,” said Satoko. “Actually, I think it’s a great idea. What makes you think I would have a problem with it?”

Wakaba had to fight very hard not to bring up a list of the ten thousand times Satoko had nixed a plan on a Samurai mission because it was “never going to work.”

Kaori twirled in front of the mirror, laughing. She was wearing a checkered schoolgirl uniform, a cat-ear headband, and knee-high boots. “We’re going to look so cute!”

Mai giggled. “What are the odds that Alina would have five k-pop outfits just hanging around in her closet?”

Wakaba laughed. “She spent a year training with Ms. Asada in Japan. I think she kind of got obsessed with the music. Alina, how do we look?”

Alina turned around. She was wearing a red tutu with long gloves, her hair pulled back tightly in a bun. “I think even Blackpink will be jealous.”

“Nah, everyone will be jealous of you, Alina!” said Kaori. “You look amazing! A ballerina at a Russian culture shindig—that’s just genius!”

Rika raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure there would really be a k-pop band at the Russian Historical Society convention?”

“Of course not,” said Alina. “But trust me. They’ll love it.”

Kaori frowned. “I don’t mean to complain, but this isn’t like the scene in Charlie’s Angels where the girls pretend they’re strippers to get ahold of the information, is it? ‘Cause that’d be embarrassing.”

Alina laughed. “No, I promise there will be no stripping. Just act cute and cheery. Which shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“Oh, phew,” said Kaori. “I don’t need one more thing to add to my ‘don’t tell mama’ list.”

“Shoma?” Wakaba knocked on the door of the bathroom. “Are you done in there?”

“Yeah, just a minute,” he called back. “Are you sure this looks right?”

He opened the door cautiously. His dark hair, usually a careless mess, was combed back elegantly from his brow. His neat suit jacket made his shoulders seem broader, and the top two buttons of his white shirt were left open. Wakaba heard Alina gasp behind her.

“It looks more than all right!” said Rika.

Kaori flung her arms wide as if making a grand announcement. “Presenting our tour manager, Mr. Shoma Uno!”

Shoma blushed and started to run his hand through his hair, then stopped before he could mess it up again. “Thanks.”

“All right,” said Satoko, adjusting her brown bob wig. “Does everyone know the plan? When the door guards ask us who we are, we’ll say we’re a k-pop band called the Butterflies.”

Wakaba frowned. “The Butterflies?”

“Alina said it should be something unassuming,” said Satoko. “Have you ever met anyone who’s afraid of butterflies?”

“Actually,” said Alina, “Zhenya is deathly scared of all insects.”

“How about the Sunflowers?” said Kaori. “Sunflowers are bright, happy, and totally not scary.”

Rika snickered. “I always thought eight-foot flowers were really weird.”

“Guys!” said Mai. “It doesn’t matter what we call ourselves. We just need to get past the door guards.”

“Thank you, Mai,” said Satoko. “So we’ll say ‘we’re the Butterflies’ and if they give us any trouble, I’ll use my mental manipulation on them.”

“We’re not calling ourselves the Butterflies,” said Wakaba. A sharp tingle ran through her head, and she touched her temple. “Although come to think of it, it’s not the worst name—”

“Satoko!” said Rika.

Satoko stopped wiggling her fingers. “What? She needed some sense knocked into her.”

“Anyways,” said Rika, “Satoko will get us past the guards. We’ll go inside and start setting up for the performance. Now, does everyone remember what song we’re doing?”

Satoko nodded. “‘Butterfly’ by Loona.”

Wakaba glared.

“I’ve always been more of a Blackpink girl,” said Rika.

Kaori’s eyes widened. “Seriously, Red Velvet is the best!”

“I can’t sing anyways,” said Mai.

Every head in the room swiveled towards poor Agent Moonbeam.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Alina. “You can lip-sync it. I’ll hack the speakers to play the song, and you follow along. Now we need to steal a car or something, ‘cause it won’t look right if the coolest girl band in the industry doesn’t even have a ride.”

“Steal?” said Mai. “Whatever happened to those Rent-a-Car places?”

Wakaba said, “We can’t be recognized.”

Satoko took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure we have a ride. Just don’t ask how I got it for us.”

 

Twenty minutes later, a black limousine pulled up alongside the fighter plane, and Satoko rolled down the window. “Get in.”

“Dang, Satoko,” said Wakaba. “Sometimes, you’re a little too reliable.”

Satoko slid out of the driver’s seat and took the spot near the left window. “You’re welcome.”

While the girls settled into their seats, Shoma just gaped at the limousine as if unsure if it was even real.

“Y—you want me to drive this thing?”

“It’s okay, Shoma,” said Alina. “Think of it as a car, but longer.”

“Okay.” Shoma took a deep breath and circled around the back of the limo. “I can do this. Just like a car, but longer. A lot longer. No problem. I’m not scared.”

By the time he sat in the driver’s seat, his face was as white as his shirt.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” said Rika. “He doesn’t look all that confident.”

Wakaba swallowed. “He’s our only choice.”

“You know, having a female chauffeur wouldn’t be too weird, would it?” Kaori cast a desperate glance at Alina.

“I trust him,” said Alina. “But buckle up.”

“Never. Never again!”

By the time Shoma sent the limousine to a screeching halt in front of the hotel, Satoko’s schoolgirl costume was soaked with sweat, her voice was hoarse from screaming, and tears of pure terror had messed up her mascara. 

“I hate you!” she hissed as she opened the door and tumbled out onto the steps of the hotel.

“Shh!” said Rika. “Save it for later!”

“Okay,” said Alina. “Before we get out, do any of you speak Russian? We might have to sweet-talk the guards for a few minutes before Satoko can get them kissing our feet.”

“Zhenya taught me,” said Wakaba. The other five were silent.

Alina winced. “Well, one’s better than none.”

The girls stepped out one by one, leaving Shoma in the limo. The Vronsky Hotel was one of the few glamorous places in Ulan-Ude—a classy twelve-story Neo-Classical building from the heyday of the Russian empire. High above, four gargoyle-like statues of eagles guarded each corner of the roof.

Two stern-looking men in black uniforms stood at the double doors. At first glance, they might have passed for regular doormen, but Wakaba noticed their anxious expressions and the bulge of pistols in their pockets. They started muttering to each other in Russian as the girls approached.

“Who are you?” the first barked at them.

Wakaba stepped forward and lay her hand on the man’s lapel. “Haven’t you heard? We are the Butterflies!” She really, really tried not to wince as she said the name.

As Wakaba spoke, Satoko waved her fingers playfully in the air. To the men, it might have looked like she was imitating a butterfly’s flight, but Wakaba knew better. She was starting her mind control.

“They’re lunatics,” the second man said under his breath.

Wakaba let her lower lip drop flirtatiously. “We were headed to tour in Moscow, but when we heard about this party, we had to stop. I’ve spent my whole life dreaming about Russian history, and now there’s an entire celebration dedicated to it.”

The first man blinked. “I didn’t know k-pop girls were into Russian history.”

Kaori stepped up, partially hiding Satoko as she closed her eyes in concentration, and spoke in Japanese.

“We’re always excited to learn new things,” Wakaba translated for the men.

The second man squinted past the Samurai and caught sight of Alina. “Who’s the tutu girl?”

Kaori gasped, feigning shock. “You’ve never heard of the famous ballerina, Elizaveta…” She paused, thinking of a name. “Kapopina?”

Behind her, Mai whispered, “K-pop-ina?

“Never heard of her,” said the first man. He rubbed at his temple and squinted at Alina harder. “Volkov, is she on the guest list?”

The second man—Volkov—pulled up a list of names on a handheld gadget and started scrolling, oblivious to the thin silvery strands of thought Satoko was threading into his mind.

“Kapopina?” he said, swiping through the alphabetical list. “There’s F, G…Oh look, Vladimir Grishkov is supposed to be coming.”

“He arrived ten minutes ago, you idiot,” said the first man, but his voice sounded dazed, not annoyed. “Is she okay?”

Volkov startled and looked up. Satoko’s eyes were squeezed shut, her lips chanting silently, her fingers moving as if she was playing an imaginary piano.

“Oh, no!” Kaori grabbed Satoko’s arm and pressed her palm against her forehead. In Japanese she whispered, “Hit the floor.”

Satoko stumbled and sprawled out on the ground. Kaori and Mai bent over her, checking her pulse, while Wakaba, Rika, and Alina crowded around the guards, blocking their view.

“Don’t mind her,” said Wakaba. “She just passes out a lot because she doesn’t eat. Our stupid manager put her on a diet.”

Volkov frowned at the screen. “I’m sorry, I don’t seem to see—aah!” He swore in Russian as the device clattered to the floor. He examined his hand, but the mark of Rika’s tiny jolt of lightning had already disappeared.

“What the hell was that?” said the first man.

By the time Volkov had retrieved both the device and his composure, the pupils of both men’s eyes were white with Satoko’s powers.

“Right this way, ladies,” said the first man.

Kaori and Mai pulled Satoko up by her arms, and the six girls strode into the hotel, still maintaining their playful, flirty mannerisms.

At the door, the two men shook their heads and rubbed their temples, aware that something bizarre had just happened but having no memory of it. Volkov frowned as he noticed the limousine still loitering at the door.

“You, sir! Move this limousine to the parking lot!”

Shoma bit his lip. “T—the p—parking lot? You want me to p—park it?”

“Are you deaf? Move!”

Swallowing and blinking, Shoma inched the limousine towards the parking lot, sweating under the men’s gazes.

“This’d better work,” he muttered to himself, pulling out his Nintendo Switch. “If we get back alive, I think I’ll send my resignation to Ms. Asada in the morning.”


	6. Kill This Terrorist

From the yawning ceilings painted with frescos of Russian heroes to the bronze statues of heroic-looking tsars, the hotel’s interior was three times as splendid as the exterior. Wakaba tried not to gape as she asked the desk clerk, a friendly-looking young man, where the Russian Historical Society meeting was being held.

“Russian Historical Society?” said the clerk. “Do you have the password, ma’am?”

“Satoko, do your thing,” Rika whispered.

Wakaba smiled. “Password? Ah, yes! My friend Elizaveta here said that you always have passwords for everything—you can’t even buy a drink here without a password! I know security is important and all, but it’s terribly annoying.” The clerk’s eyes were glazed over, filling with white. “You wouldn’t happen to know what the password is, would you?”

“Hmm?” The clerk blinked. “The Iron Nest.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Wakaba. “You’ve been a great help. And where might I find this charming party?”

“Fourth floor convention center. It’s called the White Ballroom.”

The girls crowded into the elevator, ignoring the curious stares of the other guests in the lobby. Wakaba tapped her earpiece. “Black Bond to Little Man. We’re on our way up to the conference room right now. How’re things out there?”

“Quiet,” Shoma said. In the background, she could hear his Nintendo game. “But if you ever make me park a limo again, I’m quitting.”

“Actually, you can’t do that,” said Rika. “When you signed those papers, you agreed to be a Samurai until you die. Which, I suppose, isn’t a really long time if you keep driving the way you do.”

“Oh, shush,” said Alina. “I think you did a great job, Shoma.”

Wakaba rolled her eyes. Kaori giggled until Satoko elbowed her.

“Fourth floor,” said Rika as the elevator stopped. “Everyone ready?”

Wakaba touched the pistols strapped to her thighs under her skirt before they stepped out of the elevator, swaggered down the corridor, and opened the doors to the White Ballroom. It was like walking into the grand ball in Cinderella, except the entire room was full of men in dark suits with furtive expressions, whispering in Russian between glasses of vodka or through the cigars in their mouths. On the stage at the back of the room, a man was singing an aria from The Queen of Spades.

And standing in the center of it all, smiling and drinking with two men near the cocktail bar, was Sergei Polunin.

“We’re in the ballroom,” Wakaba said into the earpiece. “I’ve got eyes on the eagle. Repeat: I have eyes on the eagle.”

“Already?” said Shoma. “Be careful!”

“We’ve got this,” said Rika. “We just need to take our time.”

The men were starting to notice the group of five Japanese girls in matching outfits, and they chattered to each other in confusion.

“Just keep walking,” Kaori whispered. “When the opera guy is done, get up to the stage and start talking, distract them. Alina, you rig the speakers.”

Alina slipped behind a row of men towards the back while the Samurai girls sashayed into the ballroom, marching straight through the bewildered crowd to the stage. Across the room, Polunin frowned, his brows drawn together with curiosity. Wakaba smiled at the crowd, but she kept one eye on him.

The plan was to get Polunin away from the main crowd, then capture him quietly and take him back to Moskvina. Until the opportunity presented itself, they needed to entertain the crowd.

The tenor finished the aria and gawked down at the girls along with the rest of the men. Awkwardly, he bowed and skittered down the steps that led off the stage. As soon as he had rejoined the crowd, Wakaba took the standing microphone in the center of the stage and spoke in Russian. “Hello! We are the Butterflies. We are here to give you a special performance tonight.”

“Well, get on with it, ladies!” said a flushed-faced man slouching at the bar next to an impressive collection of empty glasses.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t involve stripping!” Kaori hissed.

“We’re going to debut some new songs we’ve written,” said Wakaba. “They’ve never been performed in public before. You gentlemen are in for a treat.”

“Then hurry up!” the drunkard yelled.

Alina’s voice came through Wakaba’s earpiece. “Okay, I’m coming around the back of the room. I’m about to put the decrypting system on the speakers so I can hack into the sound system. Keep talking, and walk towards the left speaker so they don’t see much of me.”

“We’re so happy to be performing in Russia!” Mai said in Japanese, running towards the speaker in an adorable dance. Kaori followed, giggling and winking at a young man in the crowd.

“This next song,” said Wakaba, “is very personal to us. My sweet friend Kaori wrote the lyrics when she was going through a difficult time in her life. We weren’t sure if we should put it on the new album, but then we decided that we wanted to show all sides of life—not just the pretty parts.” Silently, she prayed that none of the men had listened to enough k-pop to recognize the tune of “Kill This Love” by Blackpink.

Kaori stepped up to the microphone and spoke in Russian. “Yes, it’s very important to me.”

“You speak Russian?” Satoko whispered without moving her lips. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“We don’t care about why you wrote it, ladies!” shouted one of the men. “Just get to the singing!”

Wakaba risked a glance over her shoulder at Alina. She had put on an oversized suit jacket that almost completely covered her brilliant red tutu, and no one noticed as she backed away from the speaker. Polunin was still lounging by the bar, but his eyes were narrowed at the girls.

“I’ve got one,” Alina said into the earpiece. “You’ve got to buy me about two and a half minutes to get the other one. Move to the right-hand side.”

The girls started drifting to the other side of the stage, but Satoko didn’t move, looking small and timid in her schoolgirl uniform and wig. Without a word, she waved her hand at someone in the crowd—a serious-faced violinist.

“Satoko!” Kaori whispered. “This isn’t part of the plan!”

“What’s she doing?” said Mai.

The violinist joined her on the edge of the stage. Satoko shook his hand with a solemn reverence that clashed with her sassy outfit. She pulled him a few steps closer, pinning him with her eyes, speaking words too soft to hear. She couldn’t speak Russian, but whatever she was saying had the man captivated. Because mind control worked in any language.

He stood at the center of the stage, raised his violin, and started playing. But it wasn’t the Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky piece Wakaba expected to hear. It was the tune of a Red Velvet song. 

“Do Protocol Star number 3,” Satoko whispered.

Wakaba froze. When Ms. Asada had been training the Samurai, she’d recognized that such a responsibility could cause stress for the young recruits. So she had thrown frequent parties in the training facility, which had included learning the moves from many k-pop dance videos, and nicknamed them “Protocol Star” so she wouldn’t get in trouble with her superiors for goofing off with her soldiers.

The girls formed a line, then began the dance. Kaori and Mai took one side of the stage, Rika and Satoko the other, and Wakaba stood in the center, never taking her eyes off Polunin. Behind the men, Alina darted along the wall towards the other speaker.

“This is crazy!” Kaori said. “Aghhh, I don’t remember all the steps!”

“Shh,” said Satoko.

The girls all dropped on one knee and threw their heads back, then grabbed each other’s shoulders and jumped back to their feet. As Wakaba mimed with her arms, she caught sight of a man with a long nose and dirty blond hair eyeing them with one hand in his jacket pocket. She had seen enough men with guns to know how they concealed them.

“Potential hostile, the blond man in the blue suit,” she gasped while trying to link arms with Kaori and Rika. “Armed.”

“You mean Lucius Malfoy over there?” said Kaori.

“Hostile?” Shoma’s voice screeched into her earpiece, and she winced. “What about Polunin? I—I mean, the Eagle?”

“Got it!” said Alina. “When you’re done, I’ll count to ten and turn on the speakers.”

By the time the girls finished the dance, they were panting. Wakaba staggered to her feet and grabbed the microphone. “Thank you! Thank you so much! And now, we’re going to perform that special song we were talking about. A special song for someone we admire so much—Mr. Sergei Polunin.”

Polunin’s eyes widened, though his face was tight as though he was trying not to appear shocked. He was thinner and shorter than Wakaba had expected, smaller than many of the men there. He was dressed neatly in a black tuxedo, his long hair neatly oiled back from his forehead, his face clean and composed. His eyes were strangely young, almost dreamlike, as though the inside of his brain was a fresco of cherubs rather than a cage of thorns. If not for the eagle tattoo on his hand, Wakaba could’ve sworn he was a different man.

“Alina, we’re ready,” said Kaori.

Ten seconds later, the speakers began playing “Kill This Love” by Blackpink, and the girls started lip-syncing. Polunin raised his eyebrows, but Wakaba couldn’t tell if he was amused or suspicious. Probably both.

As they hit the chorus, the blond man started moving sideways through the crowd, shuffling his way towards Polunin. He whispered something and Polunin flicked a dismissive hand, but the blond man stayed close, hovering like a drone.

The girls performed three more songs with no incident. While Kaori and Mai took over the chorus of a Loona hit, Satoko slid to the back of the stage. “Potential hostile is with the Eagle. Armed. Proceed with caution. Phantom Wolf, move in.”

For the past ten minutes, Alina had been maneuvering through the crowd. She had removed her suit jacket and was chatting with the men, all the while moving closer and closer towards Polunin.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, her voice shy and unassuming, “are you Sergei Polunin?”

He blinked, then smiled warmly. “Ah, yes. I don’t believe we’ve met. What is your name, dear?”

“Elizaveta, sir.” She smiled and shook his hand. “Are you enjoying the show?”

He took a sip from his glass. “I admit I’ve never really understood k-pop—when it comes to performing arts, my heart is always with the ballet—but they are charming girls indeed. On that note, what ballet will you be performing tonight?”

“Well, I’ll be performing Don Quixote for the audience.” She stepped closer, never losing her innocent smile. “But my manager said that I will be doing another dance tonight—a private performance of Swan Lake in your suite at about quarter after ten. It is the ultimate honor to dance for the great Sergei Polunin.”

His eyebrows drew together. “No one informed me of this.”

She swallowed. “Well, we—we thought it might be a nice surprise.”

“I would be delighted! We need more ballet in the world. It truly is a divine art. I will see you there, Miss Elizaveta.”

Onstage, the girls finished their final song just after ten, and Alina’s voice crackled through the earpieces. “This is Phantom Wolf. The chase is on. Target headed to room number 1200. Repeat: target headed to room number 1200.”

“You’ve got him?” said Shoma. “Are you sure you don’t need some help? I can—”

“Don’t worry, Shoma,” Alina said sweetly. “We’ve got this. You just stay in the limo and look cute, okay?”

“Thank you, everyone!” Wakaba said into the microphone. “You all have a good night!”

The girls swaggered off the stage, exited the ballroom, and took off towards the elevator. Rika pressed the button for the eleventh floor.

“We’ll stay one floor below so he won’t suspect a thing,” said Satoko. “When you give the word, we’ll come up on the stairs.”

“Entering the target’s room in five seconds,” Alina said.

The Samurai darted off the elevator and made their way to the stairs at the end of the hallway. 

“What’s going on in there?” said Shoma. “Is everything okay? I can be up there in two minutes if you need me.”

“Shoma, I’m going to have to shut you off,” said Wakaba. “We can’t let Polunin see that we’re wired. We’ll check back in ten minutes. And don’t worry about us.”

One by one, the girls all turned off their microphones and stashed them in the potted plant at the end of the corridor.

“Okay, girls,” said Wakaba. “We’ve got an eagle to hunt.”


	7. Polunin Unmasked

Inside the suite, Alina’s hands were shaking as she tied the ribbons of her ballet slippers around her ankles. The pale satin felt cold on her feet, and she felt freezing sweat on the back of her neck. She removed the earpiece and slipped it into the bodice of her dress, pinning it just below the lace along the neckline. If all went as planned, the Samurai would be along in five minutes.

Polunin was sitting at the foot of the four-poster king-size bed. He had kicked off his shoes and removed his jacket and tie. Just the sight of him made her tremble. She had faced some terrible criminals before, but something felt wrong about this whole situation.

“Mr. Polunin,” she said, not looking up from her slippers, “is it true that you hate the government?”

He shrugged. “Well, I think everyone hates the government at one point in their life. Politics is quite a sticky world, and there are plenty of undeserving people in such positions.”

“Do you think Prime Minister Ilinykh is one of those undeserving people?”

He ran his hand through his hair, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Why would you ask?”

Alina took a slow breath. “I heard that the two of you weren’t on good terms.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear in the news.” He smiled. “Now, I thought you said you were a dancer, not a reporter.”

Outside, Wakaba knocked on the door.

“I’ll get it,” said Alina, rising from the ottoman. Polunin started to stand, but she skittered to the door and curled her hand around the knob before he could reach her.

The five Samurai swaggered into the room in their k-pop outfits, smiling innocently. Wakaba and Rika leaned against the bedposts on either side of Polunin, turned carefully so he wouldn’t see the pistols on their thighs. Giggling, Mai wandered to the balcony, blocking his escape, while Kaori placed herself in front of the bathroom and Alina guarded the front door. Satoko sat on the ottoman directly in front of him and started wiggling her fingers in her lap.

Polunin’s eyes darted around the room, studying the six girls. With a gasp of realization, he lunged for his suit jacket and drew his pistol. Rika’s hand shot out, seizing the barrel, and the gun exploded into a burst of lightning. Wakaba punched him in the jaw, then sprang on top of him and knocked him flat on the mattress. Kaori and Mai flipped out their pistols in their right hands while energy crackled in the left.

“I’m not a dancer,” said Alina, moving closer to the bed and turning on the voice recorder. “My name is Alina Zagitova, and I was sent by the United Nations to capture you. You’re under arrest for acts of terrorism and the kidnapping of Prime Minister Ilinykh.”

“What are you?” Polunin screamed. “Get off me, witch!”

Rika snapped her fingers, ensnaring his legs in a ring of lightning. Wakaba clamped a handcuff on his left wrist while Mai held down his right arm. He wasn’t as strong as Wakaba had imagined, and she, Mai, and Rika had no trouble securing his wrists to the headboard.

“We will make you tell the truth,” Wakaba said in Russian, holding him by the throat and sitting on his chest. “Where is Prime Minister Ilinykh?”

Satoko stood, moving her hands through the air as if she was painting, her eyes locked on Polunin’s face.

He opened his eyes wide and yelped.

“Ah! That hurts! Stop!”

Wakaba tightened her grip on his neck. “Funny, you’ve never seemed to care about the pain you inflict on others.”

White rivers of power flowed from Satoko’s hands, wrapping around Polunin’s head. He grunted, then let out a low, pained scream. Wakaba slapped his cheek. She had a hard time feeling sympathy for this man, knowing what he had done.

“Resisting won’t do you any good,” said Alina. “Agent Miyahara has the power to draw the truth from anyone, no matter how much they fight. It will be less painful if you just tell us. So let’s try this again: where are you keeping Prime Minister Ilinykh?”

“I don’t know!” he shouted. “I don’t know! I can’t tell you anything! I don’t know anything about it! Stop, you’re hurting me!”

His eyes were completely white now. Foam burst from his mouth, and blood spurted from his cracked lip.

“Tell the truth!” Wakaba screamed.

Satoko swallowed. “He is.”

“That’s impossible!” said Kaori. “How can he not know? Satoko, are you sure your powers are working?”

“I’m certain. I’ve hacked the main center of his brain and I can detect no sign of lies. It seems to me he truly has no idea where Ilinykh is.”

A shiver ran through Wakaba. “Does that mean she’s…?”

“I’ll search him for any thoughts of her,” said Satoko. “I’ll have to scan every neuron in his brain, one by one, but if he’s so much as heard her name in conversation, we’ll know it.”

The white bolts of energy split into slender branches, weaving into Polunin’s head with a faint silvery sparkle. Satoko’s eyes turned black, so dark they almost seemed to sizzle with concentration. Mai’s hand was pressed against the glass of the window, drawing the strength of the moonlight, and Kaori was squeezing the light bulb of the floor lamp, filling her body with solar power.

“What are you doing to me?” he cried.

“She’s turning your brain inside out,” said Alina. “I tried to tell you it would be easier to just confess.”

“There’s something in here,” said Satoko. “Not about Ilinykh, but he’s hiding something. I can decode it if I can pull it apart.”

She lay her fingers on Polunin’s forehead. Every inch of his skin burst to life with sparks, and he roared, his colorless eyes flooding with tears.

“I’m not Polunin!” he shrieked. “You have the wrong man! He didn’t tell me anything about Prime Minister Ilinykh—I’m innocent, by God I swear, I swear!”

“He’s telling the truth,” said Alina. “Satoko, stop the mind control for a second. He can’t talk if you kill him.”

Frowning, Satoko pulled back her hand and drew the white energy back into her own body until the man lay wide-eyed and gasping.

“If you’re not Polunin,” Alina said, “then you need to tell us who you really are so you don’t end up in prison for another man’s crimes.”

“I’m not P—Polunin,” he said. “But I talked to the real one. The real Polunin. The Eagle’s Talons. He took my grandma. He s—said that he would k—kill b—both of us if I d—didn’t cooperate. He said he needed m—me to go to this party and wear the wig and the face prosthesis so people thought that I was him. He said it was only for one night, and then he would let Gran live. I knew that he had kidnapped the prime minister.

But he didn’t tell me where she was or anything.”

Without a word, Wakaba grabbed the skin under the man’s chin and ripped the prosthesis from his face. He wailed as she tossed it aside and stared down at his real features. He had bright blue eyes, flushed round cheeks, and a small mouth that was probably used to giving sarcastic smirks when it wasn’t open in pain. She tore off the oiled black wig, revealing feathery blond hair. He was clean-shaven, and he could not have been older than twenty-five.

“It’s supposed to peel back from the side!” he groaned.

“Mikhail Kolyada?” Alina gasped.

“You know him?” said Wakaba.

Alina nodded. “When I joined the agency, Tutberidze took me to meet an old woman in Moscow—Tatiana Anatolievna Tarasova, the mastermind of the Russian covert operations. She’s been an agent for over sixty years, and she trained both Captain Moskvina and Tutberidze. She’s so famous that everyone at the agency just calls her TAT.” She swallowed. “He’s TAT’s grandson. Which means Polunin has TAT.”

“I’m sorry,” Kolyada said. “I’m still trying to piece together what happened. He must have broke into her house and sabotaged the security systems in the middle of the night. But Gran is a terribly light sleeper, and even if he managed to shut down the booby traps, her whole bedroom is like an armory. I mean, she has two machine guns stashed in the nightstand and grenades in the flower pots.” Wakaba gaped, and he nodded sheepishly. “I know. She’s a little paranoid. But somehow, he must have managed to take her, and then he showed up at my house in St. Petersburg with a fistful of grenades and two armed soldiers.” Suddenly he sat upright, his eyes popping out of his head. “You need to get out! You aren’t safe here!”

“With all due respect,” said Wakaba, “I think we can handle ourselves.”

Kolyada shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. Polunin sent three men to this party to make sure I didn’t try to run. When they notice that I’m not downstairs, they’ll follow me up to my room and kill me. And then they’ll kill all of you.”

“These men,” said Alina. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know. The one is his main goon. Blond guy, long nose like Pinocchio, they call him Plushenko.” The girls all exchanged glances, remembering the armed man in the ballroom. “And there’s two others—big, scary, always carrying guns. Please, you have to get out of here!”

“Rika, Satoko, Kaori, we’ve got some bad guys to pick up,” said Wakaba. “Alina, Mai, stay here and protect Kolyada.”

“But—” Kolyada started.

There was a thundering crash as the door splintered out of its frame. Machine guns filled the air with debris and the sound of a popcorn machine gone haywire. Two large men in black burst into the room, turning the guns towards the bed where the six people all clustered.

Rika sent lightning blazing into the guns, blistering the men’s hands as they tried to grip the red-hot handles, while Wakaba ripped the pistols from her thighs. Kaori leaped into the air in front of the first man, her body glowing with solar power, and locked her hands around the barrel of the gun. A second later, moonlight-powered Mai jumped at the second man and caught his wrists, forcing the gun to fire at the ceiling. Kaori kneed her attacker in the stomach, knocking him against the closet doors, but he tightened his grip on the gun and fired. A burst of red blood stained Kaori’s shoulder, and she groaned.

“Kaori!” Mai screamed.

Wakaba fired two shots—one hit the first man in the stomach, the other the second man in the arm. Kolyada grabbed Alina around the waist, rolled off the bed, and sprang for the open bathroom door. “In the tub!” he shouted, slamming the door shut and locking them inside.

Mai kicked the gun from her attacker’s hands, then pushed Kaori across the room, behind the bed. “Get down, get down!”

Wakaba’s guns rang out with four more shots, two for each man. One fell to his knees while the other charged at Rika, punching her in the jaw. She staggered back, then slapped him in the chest—with a lightning bolt.

Satoko was engulfed in a white whirlwind. The men still fought, but their punches grew doubtful, their eyes wary, as she slipped into their thoughts and told them to stop attacking, lie still, and let the girls tie them up before anyone got hurt. The first man was almost motionless when Kaori’s shrill scream came from the window.

“Plushenko! He’s getting away!”

Wakaba shot the second man once more and dove to the window. A black convertible was backing out of the parking lot, and in the driver’s seat was the blond man from the ballroom.

“What are we gonna do?” said Kaori.

Without a word, Wakaba shoved the window open and jumped out into the freezing air. The cold wind rushed up her skirt as she crashed twelve stories, her ears popping, her eyes squeezed shut. She had jumped from much higher places than this, but she still didn’t like the feeling of freefalling. People who wished they could fly really needed to try on a straitjacket.

Her feet slammed hard into the ground, barely five feet from the bewildered-looking doormen, but she didn’t look back. The convertible had already crossed the parking lot, and it would be no picnic chasing him down the street. Car chases in huge cities were a lot cooler in movies than they were in real life.

As the convertible started to pull out into the street, a limousine sailed diagonally across the parking lot and careened into the car’s left passenger door. The convertible jerked back, trying to drive around the new obstacle, but the limo swerved again, crushing the door clean off. Thanking the universe for Shoma’s crazy driving, Wakaba sprinted across the parking lot and fired twice into the driver’s window, shattering the glass.

The convertible lurched forward, crunching the right-hand door of the limousine. With a sound like Satoko when Kaori tried to borrow her makeup, the convertible screeched forward, ripping the right door off the limo as it burst out into the road.

“Drive!” Wakaba shouted at Shoma. She climbed on the roof of the limousine and clung to the sides as Shoma tore out into the street. The convertible was about fifteen feet ahead. There were no other cars on this side street, but in a matter of yards, they would pull out onto the main avenue.

“Faster!” she said.

Shoma pressed the gas pedal to the floor, and Wakaba screamed as the limo closed in on the convertible. Plushenko swerved hard to the left, but Shoma kept flying straight as Wakaba darted onto the front hood of the limo, gripping her pistol in one hand and the hood ornament in the other.

The convertible charged towards the yellow traffic light at top speed with the limo in tow. Her knees trembling, Wakaba sprang onto the back hood of the convertible as the light changed, covering everything with a red flash. Plushenko, no doubt realizing someone was on his tail, ran through the red light and barreled down the avenue, passing two cars that honked in irritation.

Wakaba squeezed the sides of the car with white knuckles as Plushenko swung hard to the right, banging her knees hard into the metal. The car jolted over a bump in the road, and she lost her grip. She caught the flap of metal near the license plate, the road shredding the skin from her shins, and nearly fell off when he jerked to the left. She looked back frantically for the limo, but it was nowhere to be found. Shoma, no doubt unsure of his driving skills, must have not followed her onto the road.

There was no way she was going to climb up the back of the car and grab Plushenko from the top at this speed. Clutching the metal of the convertible in her right hand, she dug into her pocket for her tracker with her left hand. Gritting her teeth, she clapped it under the lip of the hood. With a prayer and a deep breath, she let go of the convertible and slammed headfirst onto the road.

For a moment, she felt nothing but the brilliant sting as the pavement seared the skin from her bones. Then the rush of tires whizzing closer kicked her heart, and she rolled across the road, groaning as her fresh cuts hit the ground over and over. The second she felt her shoulder bump the sidewalk, she hauled herself off the road and lay on the cold stone for several minutes—panting and dizzy, but alive.


	8. The Archer

“Agent Black Bond! Agent Black Bond!”

Wakaba sat up, rubbing her shoulder, and squinted at the dented limousine pulling to a stop beside her. None of her cuts were too deep, but there were dozens of them, and her head was spinning from the blood loss. She waved for Shoma to help her get into the limo, but as the driver stepped out, she started wondering if she had hit her head in the fall.

Shoma was wearing one of the checkered skirts and schoolgirl vests the girls had used for their k-pop show. His hair was covered in a bobbed brown wig, and his cheeks and eyes were highlighted with cheerful makeup. It actually wasn’t such a bad look on him.

“Shoma,” Wakaba said, “what are you wearing?”

He blushed. “Well, I was waiting in the car for you, but you turned off your microphones, and you weren’t coming, so I thought I’d go in after you and make sure everything was all right. That’s why I put on the outfit. But then the blond guy came flying out of the building, and I thought, that looks like a man on the run. So when he tried to drive out of there, I figured I’d try to stop him. But as you can see, that didn’t go so well.” He swallowed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Wakaba stood up and brushed off her torn skirt. “Why didn’t you follow us in the limo when he pulled out onto the main street?”

Shoma shrugged. “I didn’t want to run a red light, Agent Black Bond.”

Wakaba frowned. “You’re a Samurai, one of the six deadliest people in Japan, and you just said you didn’t want to run a red light?”

“I’m sorry, Agent Black Bond. I just—I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

She sighed. “Come on, sis. We’ve got to get back to the rest of our band.”

Wakaba slid into the passenger seat of the limo and tried not to vomit as Shoma steered them back into the parking lot of the hotel. The other girls and Kolyada were all clustered outside, chattering in a frenzy as they saw the damaged limousine.

“Waka!” Kaori screeched the moment the door opened. Her arm was tied up in a bed sheet, but she wasted no time running to her friend. “You’re alive!”

“Of course I am. Plushenko got away, but I put a tracker on him. We’re moving out tonight; we’ve got to follow him.”

But no one seemed to hear Wakaba. They were all staring at Shoma, their faces frozen in a myriad of meme-worthy expressions. Kaori was giggling as if she had swallowed live pixies. Rika’s mouth hung open in a perfect O. Satoko’s eyes were closed, as if asking God to bless this wayward boy. Alina blushed, and Kolyada’s brow was knotted as if he didn’t understand any of it.

“Shoma?” Mai squeaked, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Looks like we’ve added a new member to our girl group,” said Kaori.

“You look very pretty, Shoma,” said Alina.

Wakaba clapped her hands impatiently. “Um, guys? Does anyone want to follow Plushenko before Polunin kills Prime Minister Ilinykh, or should we just sit around and enjoy Shoma’s drag show while the world blows up?”

“Oh, yes, right, Polunin,” said Kaori. “I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just so funny!”

Satoko gestured to the limousine. “What are we going to do about that? We were supposed to drive it to the next checkpoint so Agent Hanyu could pick us up in the jet.”

Kolyada shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve ruined a car on a mission. We’ll just have to rent one.” 

“Deal,” said Wakaba. “But this time, I’m driving.”

 

Forty-eight minutes later, the Samurai, Alina, and Kolyada were cruising out of Ulan-Ude in a minivan. Kolyada was at the wheel, despite Wakaba’s complaints, and she was starting to think she should’ve put up more of a fight. 

“I pay for the car, I drive the car,” Kolyada said as he tore around a sharp curve at eighty miles per hour. “Besides, I’m the only one who knows the way around these roads.”

“Well, apparently ‘know the way’ does not equal ‘know how to navigate without killing us’!” Wakaba screamed.

“Don’t worry, we won’t die,” said Alina. “Kolyada is a very good agent.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” said Wakaba. “But that doesn’t mean he’s a good driver.”

They shot over a row of train tracks onto a stretch of open road. Kolyada slammed his foot on the gas pedal, and the minivan barreled along so fast the engine started thumping in protest.

“Sorry, guys!” he said. “But we wouldn’t want to be late to meet Agent Hanyu, would we?”

In the back seat, Satoko was praying.

Twenty miles from Ulan-Ude, they stopped in the middle of a frozen field. The heavy snow had forced Kolyada to slow from “bat out of hell” to “NASCAR champion”.

“What the bloody devil is this place?” he said, his brow knotting in confusion. “Wakaba, are you sure you have the right coordinates?”

She sighed. “Yes, Hanyu sent them over six times. They’re not wrong.”

Kaori frowned. “You don’t suppose he went for a joyride in the jet, do you? I mean, it’s really cool, so I wouldn’t blame him or anything.”

“Kaori!” Satoko gasped. “It’s Agent Hanyu. He’s Ms. Asada’s right-hand man. He wouldn’t blow a mission like this.”

“Guys,” said Rika, “he’s right here.”

Everyone turned around in the van. “What? Where?”

She pointed out the window. “Seriously, you didn’t think that snow makes a whirlwind by nature, did you?”

A hundred feet from the van, a cyclone of snow had started swirling just above the ground. As they stared, it grew lower and thicker until it collapsed into a wide depression in the snow. Two orange lights appeared through the haze, and a moment later, Wakaba’s fighter jet materialized on the spot.

“Cloaking device,” said Rika.

Agent Hanyu stepped out of the plane. Despite the cold, he was wearing only a business suit and a turquoise silk tie. Wakaba had seen him in action—expert marksman, sly as a cat, dedicated to his work—but out here, he looked a little ridiculous picking his way through the snow.

“There you are!” he said as they waved through the windows. “I didn’t expect you to arrive so early.”

Kaori giggled. “That’s because Kolyada here drives like he’s getting chased by bears.”

Hanyu blinked at the sight of Kolyada behind the wheel. “Agent Muse.”

“Archer,” said Kolyada.

Wakaba raised an eyebrow. “You two know each other?”

“We had a mission in Japan together,” said Alina. “It was quite fun, actually.”

Hanyu gasped. “Phantom Wolf? Why, it’s been years! The last time I saw you, you were—well, a little wolf cub. And now…” He took her hand and kissed it. “A pleasure to see you again.”

Kaori swatted his arm. “Save your breath, Hanyu. She’s only got eyes for Shoma.”

Shoma peeked out between Mai and Rika, still wearing the wig and skirt, and grinned. Hanyu’s eyes crossed in utter bewilderment.

“It’s a long story,” said Wakaba. “We’ll tell you on the way to Vladivostok. Right now, we’re following one of Polunin’s men. He’s headed straight to the boss himself. And when we find him, we’re going to finish them both off.”

 

With Wakaba in the cockpit, the jet made for a much smoother ride than the limousine or the minivan. Behind her, the other agents were chattering as if they hadn’t seen each other since the Stone Age.

“I still don’t understand,” said Mai. “Who is this Plushenko we’re supposed to catch?”

“He’s a genius,” said Hanyu. “He’s the sharpest shooter in the eastern hemisphere, a master spy from the Soviet days. Three years ago, his helicopter got shot down over Mongolia and he fractured nearly every bone in his body. So a strange little doctor from Israel injected steel into his bones in place of marrow, which gives him a built-in suit of armor within his own skin.”

Rika wrinkled her nose. “For him being a big bad villain, you certainly seem impressed by him.”

Hanyu shrugged. “Say what you will about him, but he’s a terribly good agent. He joined the Soviet secret police when he was only fourteen. He was an incredible agent before the crash, but now he’s virtually indestructible.”

Wakaba stuck out her chin. “Nothing is indestructible.”

Satoko frowned at the tiny red dot on the scanner in her lap. “How are we not gaining ground on him yet? We’re flying a state-of-the-art warplane and he’s driving a car.”

“Knowing Plushenko, he’s probably wired the car with some technology from Polunin,” said Hanyu.

A sputtering snore cut over the hum of the engine. Shoma was sleeping in his seat, his wig askew. Kaori had dozed off in the back, her head on Mai’s shoulder. Alina was concealing a yawn behind her hand, and even Satoko was blinking to keep herself awake. Just looking at them made Wakaba feel ready to collapse in exhaustion. It had been a long, long day.

“I can take the wheel,” Hanyu said suddenly. “You need to sleep so you can fight later.”

Wakaba shook her head. “I’m the only one who can fly this thing.”

“I flew it here, didn’t I?”

She sighed. “Okay, okay. But don’t waste any time. When I wake up, I want to see Polunin hogtied to this ship with an apple in his mouth.”


	9. Smoke and Mirrors

Wakaba’s nose stung with a rancid odor. Her skin was covered in sweat, her eyes too dry to open, and the insides of her eyelids were glowing orange. Her hands fumbled for the seatbelt around her. Something wasn’t right here. They were supposed to be moving.

Her eyes flew open, and she gasped in a cloud of smoke. The jet was on fire. Ablaze.

“Get out!” she shouted, coughing as the fumes rushed into her throat. She tore off her seatbelt and leaped to her feet. Both engines were consumed in flames, and the sleeping Samurai weren’t moving from their seats.

Wakaba ran to the back of the jet, cringing as the fire scorched her bare legs. Kaori and Mai were fast asleep, unaware of the sparks climbing up the seats. Wakaba shook Kaori first, unlatching her seatbelt in the process. Kaori’s eyes snapped open, and instantly her face filled with panic as she saw the burning plane.

“Fire!” said Wakaba. “Get everyone out!”

Kaori was already out of her seat, screaming at Mai to wake up. Alina stirred at the noise and shrieked, waking Satoko. Kolyada was on his feet, trying to help Rika get out. Mai sent a moonbeam spiraling into the air, creating a shield around Satoko’s feet as the fire tried to chase her.

Rika tumbled out of the jet and rolled onto her back. Lightning rocketed from her hands and surrounded the flaming engines. She squeezed her eyes shut, and the fire started slithering up the lightning bolts into her hands. She was drawing the flames out of the jet into her own body.

Kolyada grabbed Alina, pushed her out into the snow, and ran to the cockpit. Hanyu was slumped over in his seat, his head on the control panel. “Hanyu, wake up! Wake up!”

In all the chaos, Shoma was still snoring like a bear.

“Shoma!” Alina scrambled to her feet, struggling to get back into the plane. “We’ve got to get Shoma!”

Mai leaped to the ground, filled her hands with snow, and closed her eyes. A massive snowball started forming atop her delicate fingertips until it looked like the body of a snowman. With a little grunt, she sent it flying at the left-hand engine, dousing the flames.

Inside the jet, Wakaba looked around for Satoko, but everything was getting blurry—was that Kaori or Mai in front of her? She staggered towards the cockpit, her feet crying out as she stepped in the fire. Her vision was tilting, spinning, turning to green and purple swirls. She felt ready to collapse, and it wasn’t from the smoke.

“Wakaba!” Someone slapped her face—Satoko? Alina? “Wakaba, we need to get out!”

“Just…just a minute.” Wakaba turned around, trying to find the door, but it seemed to have moved. “Almost…”

A sharp pain stabbed her in the side of her head, and her eyes started pulsing red. She stumbled to the left, into a rush of cold air, but her skull was an inferno. It felt like someone was trying to fry her brain from the inside.

She fell face-first into the snow, and several hands started touching her, prodding her. The migraine was subsiding, but the world still looked fuzzy. The jet was incinerating in a dreamy haze of orange, and she heard Mai saying her name over and over.

Kaori hauled Shoma out of the fire, coughing and shaking. Kolyada emerged a moment later with Hanyu draped over his shoulders. His eyes were wild, his voice tense. “Get away from the plane.”

“Why?” Mai gasped.

“Now!”

Wakaba felt her body being dragged away, and for a moment, one word howled in her mind: grenade. She started crawling back on her own until she found her feet, swaying on her unsteady legs but aware of the need to run.

“Everyone, get back!” she cried. “Grenade!”

“No, no, no!” Alina grabbed her shoulders. “It’s the gas! It makes everyone weak and sleepy, that’s why we didn’t wake up sooner!”

Shoma, Kaori, and Mai had collapsed in a heap. Alina ran to join them, cradling his sweet face in her elegant hand. “Shoma, are you all right? Please, please wake up.”

His eyes fluttered, and he let out a regretful groan. “Next time we get burned alive, remind me not to wear a dress.”

“Wakaba,” said Hanyu. “Come here.”

Still dizzy, she turned around and stood beside him, where Hanyu was lying motionless on the packed snow. But it wasn’t because of the fire. A bloodstain the size of a handprint marred his chest and stained his silk tie.

“Is he…?” She didn’t dare finish the sentence.

Kolyada swore in Russian. “Just when I reunite with an old friend, he decides to die on me. Typical.”

Wakaba swallowed, her throat raw from the smoke and the screaming. She had never been close to Agent Hanyu, but she had respected him as one of the best agents in the field, and Ms. Asada had trusted him with her life. “I don’t understand. Why would they stab him, but not us?”

“I don’t know! They must have shot the plane down, killed him, and released the gas to finish off the rest of us. But why him? Why him, you ask? If only I knew!” He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled. “How did they do it? He had the shields up, and the guns should’ve gone off if anyone even tried to attack.”

A cold shiver ran through Wakaba’s blood, and her voice tasted bitter in her mouth. “The bathroom.”

Kolyada frowned. “Bathroom?”

“Ugh, there’s a tiny metal compartment in the back with a toilet. Someone must’ve crawled inside there before Hanyu left headquarters, set off the gas, and stabbed him because he was the only one awake.”

“But the plane came straight from headquarters! There’s no way the culprit could’ve sneaked through all the security to get inside.”

Wakaba swallowed. “Unless he was already inside.”

“What are you saying? All the agents in the Samurai system have security clearance—Hanyu said that Asada woman checks everyone.”

“She checks all the Samurai. But what if the person wasn’t a Samurai, but wasn’t a stranger either? What if they were from the United Nations?”

“The United Nations are the ones trying to stop Polunin! They would never try to blow up their own team.” 

“Wait, think about it.” Wakaba’s brain felt electric, humming with ideas coming faster than her mouth could share them. “Mr. Gailhaguet was more than happy to give Polunin the weapons if it meant he wouldn’t have to work. And General Arutunian hates Ms. Asada—maybe he wanted to see us fail. I’m not sure about Mr. Dean—he seems all right, but who knows what he might be after?” She took a deep breath. “I trust Moskvina.”

Kolyada started pacing in a tight circle, his face scrunched up in frustration. “There has to be some way of knowing! Can you contact Asada and ask her what’s going on at headquarters? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“I’d contact her,” Wakaba said grimly, “but the communications system is currently under a burning warplane, and that’s the only secure network we’ve got.”

“Did someone say they needed a communication system?” Shoma lifted his head. “‘Cause I’ve still got the Nintendo.”

“Well, as much I’d love to play some Pokemon right now,” Satoko said through gritted teeth, “I don’t think Prime Minister Ilinykh will like it if she dies because you were playing a video game!”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Shoma sat up, shrugging off the concerned hands. “Ms. Asada told me that if anything ever happened to the communications system, I could log onto the game and it would alert her that something was wrong. She put a chip in there that lets you send coded messages.”

The rest of the team was gaping at him.

“What, you didn’t think I was playing Mario Kart all that time, did you?”

He picked up the handheld controller, blew some snow off the screen, and logged into his account. He entered several passwords, a thumbprint test, and a retina scan before a series of white letters ran across the screen: ACCESS GRANTED. A second later, some purple characters in Japanese appeared: MONARCH. This was Ms. Asada’s codename. Shoma answered in green—codename Little Man.

MONARCH: Where are you?

LITTLE MAN: Two hours from Vladivostok. We were chasing the Eagle’s Talons. Someone shot down our plane and killed Archer.

MONARCH: Are there any other casualties?

LITTLE MAN: No.

MONARCH: Is the plane intact?

LITTLE MAN: Depends upon what you consider “intact”.

MONARCH: Take the train to Vladivostok. Something’s not right here. The board came here last night, asking questions about the mission. They’re still here and I don’t like it.

LITTLE MAN: Who’s all there?

MONARCH: The other four delegates. Except Arutunian left after dinner and Moskvina is leaving in half an hour.

Wakaba elbowed Shoma hard. He blinked, trying to figure out what was so significant about that. She elbowed him again, and he started typing.

LITTLE MAN: How long ago was that?

MONARCH: Six hours. And one of the jets is missing.

LITTLE MAN: What kind?

MONARCH: A Blind-Man’s Bullet. It’s the smallest, fastest, most covert craft we have. It’s basically an invisible pod. I can’t help thinking he stole it.

Shoma’s eyes were wide, taking in the information, but before he could respond, Ms. Asada sent another message.

MONARCH: But he couldn’t have been the man who shot your plane down. The last thing he wants is to let this mission fail. He’s part of the stakeout on the site in Moscow where Polunin told us to leave the bombs.

LITTLE MAN: He’s in Moscow? How fast can he fly in that jet?

MONARCH: It’s like a spaceship. You could fly across Siberia in an hour.

Wakaba snapped her fingers. “Shoma, don’t just sit there. What are we waiting for? It’s him!”

MONARCH: Be nicer to Little Man, Black Bond. If not for him, you would all be sitting in the snow with no plan of attack.

Wakaba gasped. “Shoma…does this thing…can she hear us?”

MONARCH: Of course I can hear you. Now get on the train to Vladivostok. I’m taking a Blind-Man’s Bullet to Moscow to teach Mr. Arutunian a lesson.


	10. The Interrogation

“Well, I never liked Arutunian much,” said Kaori over the low hum of the engines as the train whizzed down the tracks towards Vladivostok. “I don’t trust anyone who can be grumpy with Ms. Asada.”

“You know he’s Russian, don’t you?” said Kolyada. “His father was killed by the Soviet secret police about forty years ago. He defected to the United States and joined the army just to spite the Soviets. After that, he worked his way up in the military until he became a general, and that’s when the United Nations Special Forces hired him.”

Wakaba frowned. “That would’ve been helpful to tell us a little sooner.”

Kolyada’s brows arched together. “You didn’t ask me anything about him. How was I supposed to know?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Satoko. “We have just five hours left before Polunin kills Prime Minister Ilinykh. If we fail, every human on this planet is going to die. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah, it’s a great pep talk,” said Wakaba.

“I’m serious, Wakaba. This isn’t an in-and-out mission to catch a couple of jewelry thieves. This isn’t even a matter of national security. It’s the fate of the world.”

Alina swallowed. “I don’t like this.”

Satoko started braiding the ends of her hair with quick, determined fingers. “Well, I don’t like it either, but somebody has to be in charge of this mission, and I don’t see anyone stepping up. Hanyu is already dead, we have a Russian mole in the United Nations, and right now I just need some pineapple.”

The Samurai exchanged confused glances.

“It calms me,” Satoko said, dead serious.

Rika pressed her thumb and forefinger together, creating a spark of lightning. “We’re going to do just fine. We’re a team. Ms. Asada chose us because we’re the best people for the job. And we aren’t going to let her down.” She stood up in the train cabin. “Which is why we need to get some speed.”

Satoko blinked, her face filling with concern as Rika opened the compartment door. “Rika, whatever you’re thinking, this can’t be a good—”

But Rika was already headed for the conductor’s cabin, ignoring Satoko’s protests. A second later, the train glowed yellow and electric as if lightning had seized control of the entire train. Because it had.

Screams echoed through the cabins as the wheels lifted from the tracks. The engine screamed, and the entire train lurched forward like a rocket. A gust of wind blew Wakaba’s hair straight back and stung her face with cold. She tried to grab the seat in front of her, but her arms were flailing uncontrollably. Satoko’s nails dug into her shoulder as the view out the window turned to a white blur.

Then, all at once, the terror was over. The train clunked onto the tracks in Vladivostok station, and the eerie light extinguished. Rika’s small, round face peeked into the cabin, covered in soot. “Sorry. I thought we could use a boost.”

A dozen passengers were on their feet, trying to grab her, but she was already crawling out the window. “Come on!” she squeaked at the other Samurai, leaping out onto the station floor and sprinting away. The others clambered out after her, shaking off the snatching hands of travelers (and in Kolyada’s case, a suitcase aimed at his head).

“Excuse me, excuse me!” Shoma said as he bumped into at least twenty bewildered people on his way to the door. Two Russian police officers called out after them, but Alina led the way down a side street, and they ducked behind a large information sign where several tourists had gathered.

“Well, that was exciting,” said Kaori, tossing her ponytail and dusting off her skirt. “It’s not every day you ride a train powered by lightning and get chased by a bunch of terrified train passengers who think you’re witches.”

“Yes, we’ll have to do it again sometime,” Wakaba muttered.

“Let’s switch out our clothes,” said Rika. “By now, people might’ve heard about the k-pop girl band who almost killed a Russian mobster and jumped onto a moving car. Not to mention the ballerina assassin and the drag queen.” She gave Shoma an apologetic smile. “Besides, I’m freezing in this outfit.”

One by one, the girls and Shoma slipped into the bathroom of a grocery store and changed into the skintight black bodysuits Ms. Asada had designed for their missions. Alina put on a hoodie and yoga pants, and Kolyada took off his suit jacket.

“I feel like we’re going scuba diving,” said Kaori, picking at the stretchy fabric.

Kolyada smiled. “At least they’re a little better than what Agent Chen likes to wear. I swear that guy has a contract with Speedo.”

Satoko’s eyes widened as she looked down at the scanner. “Plushenko is only three miles away. We need to move.”

They filed out of the grocery store, ignoring the curious stares from passerby that came with the territory of six Japanese people in wetsuits jogging down the streets of Vladivostok in the middle of winter.

“Shouldn’t we slow down?” said Kaori. “Everyone is staring at us.”

“Four hours and twenty-one minutes,” said Satoko, frowning at her watch. “You tell me if we should slow down or not.”

“The scanner’s stopped,” said Wakaba. “Plushenko must’ve reached his destination. Let’s go.”

A block from the red dot on the screen, they slowed their pace to a brisk walk. This end of town was full of dingy warehouses with peeling paint and battered concrete walls. “Be careful,” said Satoko. “It’s probably booby-trapped.”

To be honest, Wakaba was expecting a dozen armed guards at the door, or a missile rigged to fire upon trespassers, or at least an electric fence to make it interesting. But the building was a two-story warehouse, as dull and unassuming as the others flanking it. The snow, clearly not shoveled, reached their knees, and a row of long, thin footprints led to the door. Amidst the downtrodden gloom of the run-down street, Plushenko’s sleek convertible looked distinctly out of place.

Wakaba took the pistols from the holsters on her thighs. “Gather your power. We’re going to need it.”

Kaori’s fingers started collecting the dim sunlight, Rika clenched her fist until lightning ran up her arm, and Satoko closed her eyes to call the white energy into her body. Wakaba led the way, tiptoeing up to the door. She twisted the knob, already prepared to kick it down, but the door creaked open, unlocked.

The inside of the warehouse was no more optimistic than the outside. Barrels of oil lined the walls. Crates and scrap wood littered the floor. But Wakaba’s eye went straight to Plushenko, and to his right, Polunin.

Looking at him, standing against the wall with his arms folded and an evil smirk on his face, Wakaba didn’t know how she had possibly believed Kolyada was this murderer. Polunin’s greasy hair hung to his shoulders, and his face was unshaven, giving a cruel edge to his jaw and upper lip. He was wearing a pressed black suit and a long red tie, creating a sharp contrast to his ragged features. But the most unnerving part was that he didn’t look afraid of them.

“Ah, there you are!” he said in Russian. “I knew that Asada woman would send you as soon as she heard the news. Come, come, let’s talk. I know you’ve been dying to meet me.”

Wakaba kept walking towards him, keeping a firm grip on her pistols. “Where’s Prime Minister Ilinykh?”

He smiled. “Well, I see you aren’t much of a conversationalist. You’ve come for the lady, hmm? I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

Taking a deep breath, Wakaba fired a shot from her right-hand pistol. It would’ve been a perfect hit, but Polunin turned his head, and it grazed his temple. He blinked, then ran his finger over the mark, smirking at the smear of blood.

Satoko screamed as she sent a bolt of white power hurling towards Polunin’s chest. Plushenko grabbed for his pistol, but he dropped it as lightning scorched his hand. Kaori sprang on him, kicking him to the ground while Alina bound his wrists with a stout rope.

“I asked you nicely, and you didn’t respond,” said Wakaba, training her gun on Polunin’s chest while Satoko’s mind-control weaved into his bloodstream. “So let me ask you again: where’s Ilinykh?”

He laughed, almost like a cackle. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”

Wakaba shot him in the hand with her left gun. “Answer us or that next shot won’t be in such a convenient place.”

Polunin’s eyes were swirling with white, but he kept laughing. “You came all the way to Vladivostok, trying to kill me. Truly, I’m flattered. Only the best of the best can create such a diversion that even the United Nations has no idea.”

“That’s not an answer!” Kolyada hissed. “What have you done with my grandmother?”

“It’s working,” Mai whispered in his ear. “He might not look like he’s in pain, but she’s making him talk.”

Polunin sighed. “Ah, yes, the old lady. Don’t worry, little Kolyada, she’s not in harm’s way. She’s still busy babbling all those letters and numbers she refused to tell us not so long ago. Strange how a few injections can make a captive talk.”

“You know, I was thinking the same thing,” said Wakaba. “Or we could just cut to the chase and take you to jail.”

He laughed again. “And for what? For bothering the United Nations on their lunch break?”

“Uh, how about terrorism?” said Kaori.

“Oh, you young people are so confused. Nowadays, you just throw those words around so casually. Racist, misogynist, terrorist—it’s all one big game to you, isn’t it? But I’ve played this game longer, and I know you won’t win.”

Wakaba frowned. “Hmm, there’s eight of us and one of you, most of us are genetically enhanced assassins, and you have the entire United Nations trying to kill you. That doesn’t sound like winning to me.”

Polunin closed his eyes halfway, as if sharing a dirty secret. “That’s what you don’t know. The United Nations has no intention of killing me. They’re the ones who helped me set this all up in the first place.”

“We know about Arutunian,” said Wakaba. “Now you will tell us where you’re keeping Prime Minister Ilinykh, and maybe we’ll give you mercy and let you get hanged by the United Nations instead of tearing you apart with our supernatural abilities.”

“A clever bargain, Agent Black Bond. But it won’t work.”

She swallowed in shock, and he grinned.

“You didn’t expect me to know your names, did you? Arutunian gave me a few pieces of information regarding Asada’s little experiments. Ah, young Samurai, you had no idea that this plan was already in motion years before you even volunteered for the Special Forces. Shall I give you a history lesson?”

“Make it quick,” said Kolyada.

“I will do my best. As a boy, I was a thief on the streets of Kiev. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, and there was loads of money to be had, but only a few who had it. At first, everyone was convinced that things would be better, so they created a new government—just like the old days, where the rich adorned themselves in silk and gold while the peasants starved in the gutters.”

“Wait a second,” said Wakaba. “You’re saying you hated the post-Soviet government because it made you poor. So why were you so upset when Ilinykh and the new democracy wiped out that system?”

Polunin held up a single finger. “You didn’t let me finish. At first, I was furious with the new system. One rich man among a hundred poor ones. Until one day, I became the rich man.”

Kolyada frowned. “By that, you mean you started stealing precious artifacts and jewels around the world.”

He shrugged. “Stealing, reclaiming—what does it matter? Man is held back only by himself. He is born into poverty, so he just accepts that he was not meant for greatness. But where do you think all these great men come from? They crawl out of the shadows. They fight. The only difference between a weak man and a strong man is that the strong man climbed to the top.”

“And killed hundreds of people to get there,” said Wakaba.

“I am sorry for that. Truly, I have no vendetta against humanity. Well, they are stupid, and incredibly naïve, but one can deal with that. I surround myself with men who think as I do. Together, we will build a new Russia, and eventually a new world.”

Kolyada sighed. “Forgive me for not seeming interested in your neo-Nazi philosophies, but can you skip to the part about Arutunian before I kill you myself?”

“Oh, of course! I met the great Arutunian when the United Nations visited Switzerland a few years ago. I suppose I should’ve checked their calendar before planning my holiday in Lausanne—it’s not easy being an internationally wanted criminal in the same city as the Special Forces. One of my consultants said there was a man who had heard of my genius and wanted to meet me. You must imagine the shock I had when I saw it was Arutunian. To be fair, I thought maybe it was a setup! You know how clever those Special Forces can be. But he told me that he was impressed by my work and wanted me to do a job for him. You see, General Arutunian doesn’t exactly fancy the motherland, so he thought it might be nice to clear out the parliament and take care of some of the new ‘progressive thinkers’ around Moscow.”

Wakaba narrowed her eyes. “And kill the entire city with a bomb while you’re at it.”

“Oh, no, no, no, Agent Black Bond. The bombs have nothing to do with it! I was merely planning to use them for leverage. If people are going to respect me as a leader, they’ll need a little motivation, won’t they? They won’t put up a fuss if there’s twenty billion dollars of nuclear weapons hanging over their heads. It’s much more effective than ballot-stuffing, don’t you think?”

“He’s stalling,” said Alina. “Wakaba, we only have three hours and thirty-six minutes left.”

“I’m trying!” Satoko’s arms were white up to her shoulders, and her eyes were watering from the effort of penetrating his mind. “He doesn’t have her!”

Kolyada cursed.

“What do you mean, he doesn’t have her?” said Mai.

Polunin raised his eyebrow and smirked. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along! I can’t tell you where Prime Minister Ilinykh is, because she’s with Arutunian!”

Kaori gasped. Satoko’s brow knotted, and the white ribbons relaxed around her fingertips.

“That’s impossible,” said Wakaba. “Arutunian is in Moscow, doing a stakeout on the site where you told us to leave the bombs.”

“Well, it’s not like he’s going to bring her to the place so all the authorities can see her,” said Polunin. “They’ve been combing every inch of Russia, thinking I dragged her out to Siberia, when she’s been in Moscow the whole time.”

“We’ll find her,” said Kolyada. “Now where’s my grandmother?”

Polunin jerked his head towards the floorboards. “The trapdoor’s under some of those crates, I’m not sure which ones. You can have her back, now that I’ve gotten all the codes out of there. At least what’s left of her.”

“Everyone freeze!”

Wakaba flipped around, expecting to see an army of Russian mobsters pointing guns at her head. But instead, eight Interpol officers were standing in the doorway. Outside, she could hear the quick blades of a helicopter landing. And standing in the middle of it was Christopher Dean, the British Special Forces delegate, with a pistol in hand.

“United Nations Special Forces,” he said in English. “Sergei Polunin, you’re under arrest for international acts of terrorism, as well as the kidnapping of Elena Ilinykh and Tatiana Tarasova. Samurai, I can take it from here.”


	11. A Race Against Time

Immediately, four of the Interpol officers had their hands on Polunin, trapping his wrists and ankles in shackles. The other four were shoving aside crates and hacking at the floorboards, trying to find the trapdoor where Polunin had concealed Kolyada’s grandmother.

“Right here!” cried an officer. “It’s locked!”

Rika grabbed the rusty iron padlock in her fist and squeezed her eyes shut. A flash of lightning burned through the metal, and the trapdoor swung open.

Tatiana Anatolievna Tarasova was usually a large, intimidating woman, respected and feared by all who knew her. She was lying motionless on the stone floor, her blonde hair limp and dirty, bound and gagged. As the men hauled her out of the darkness, Wakaba instantly saw the fresh cuts marking her arms.

Kolyada was shifting from foot to foot, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. Two men removed the ropes and gag while a third splashed water on her face. Her head shifted slightly.

“She’s alive,” said Mr. Dean. “But we need to get her to the hospital right away.”

Wakaba grabbed Mr. Dean’s arm. “Mr. Dean, you’ve got to stop Arutunian. He’s got Ilinykh, and he’s—”

A deafening pop, and a brilliant sting of pain struck her shoulder. A moment later, Satoko cried out and dropped to one knee. Kaori’s eyes and mouth opened wide, and she tipped over, facedown.

Wakaba flipped around just quick enough to see Plushenko holding his gun in his bound hands before Mr. Dean shot him twice in the chest. He did not move again.

“Bloody hell, are you all right?” Mr. Dean’s eyes darted from Wakaba’s bloody shoulder to Satoko’s stomach wound to the brilliant red stain on Kaori’s back. “Someone, get a paramedic!”

“I’m okay,” Wakaba gasped, pressing her hand against the open skin. Satoko nodded in agreement. “But Kaori—”

Mai’s hands were shaking as she checked Kaori for a pulse. “She’s—she’s not breathing. I can’t feel—I don’t feel—” Her voice cracked.

“I can help.” Rika’s fingers were glowing with lightning. “If we can jump-start her heart, she’ll start breathing again.”

“No!” Satoko jumped to her feet, then sat back down from lightheadedness. “Rika, the last time you tried to jump-start something with lightning, you almost killed us.”

“She’s already dead.” Mai’s eyes were full of tears, and her chin and lips were trembling, making her look like a scared rabbit. “You have to try.”

“Get her to the truck,” said Mr. Dean. “All of you, get in. The troops are trained for emergencies—we’ll drive you straight to the nearest hospital.”

“No, you can’t!” Wakaba dug her nails into his arm. “We have to catch Arutunian. We have less than three hours.”

“Moskvina and Asada are already there with two dozen troops. It’s the best we can do. Now let’s go!”

Before Wakaba could protest, two officers were holding her arms and walking her to one of the moving trucks the Special Forces used as undercover transportation. Two more were carrying Kaori to a different truck. The officers pushed Wakaba inside, and a second later, they tossed Rika beside her.

“But I’m not even hurt!” Rika said. “Let me help!”

The door shut in their faces.

“What are we going to do?” Wakaba whispered. “We’re never going to reach Moscow in time. If Arutunian has access to all the weapons, everyone is still in danger.”

“I know!” Rika buried her face in her hands. “Waka, if I don’t shock Kaori’s heart back to life, she’ll die.”

“What are you two little girls whining about? We have a crook to catch!”

Wakaba and Rika jumped. Tatiana Tarasova was lying on the floor of the truck, scowling at them.

“But we can’t get out of here,” said Rika. “They locked us in.”

The old woman sniffed. “You’re going to give up that easy? You just blasted me out of a hidden room—surely you can break out of a moving van.”

Wakaba shook her head. “We can’t. The driver will—”

“Idiots! You’re two of the deadliest assassins in Japan, and you’re afraid of some dumbo who drives a truck? Clearly the Samurai weren’t picked based on common sense.”

“All right, all right!” said Wakaba. “But what do we do after we get out of the truck?”

Tatiana Tarasova rolled her eyes. “You stop the other trucks, wake up the girl with the dead heart, and steal the helicopter to Moscow.”

“Even if we managed to survive all that,” Wakaba said, “we wouldn’t make it. The helicopter isn’t fast enough to fly across Russia in three hours.”

“Bah! You really think the United Nations Special Forces would send Christopher Dean to catch a terrorist in a regular old helicopter? Wake up, you ninnies! It’s a flying saucer!” When the girls didn’t respond, she snorted. “Asada never told you about the flying saucers?”

Wakaba folded her arms, wincing at her bleeding shoulder. “I can believe in a lot of things, but flying saucers are a little outside my imagination.”

“Not alien spaceships, birdbrain! The Flying Saucer is the latest light-speed plane the British designed for the Special Forces. I guess they named it a saucer because Mr. Dean really has a thing for his morning tea.”

“So it’s like the Blind-Man’s Bullet,” said Rika.

Wakaba took a deep breath. “Okay. On the count of three, we blow the door off the truck and climb out onto the roof. Agent Tarasova, do you think you can make it?”

She laughed. “What, you thought I was coming with you? You’re the spry new recruits with all your Tinker Bell pixie dust hullabaloo. My job is just to boss people around.”

Wakaba rolled her eyes as she faced the back door of the moving truck. Rika’s hand glowed with power, and lightning sliced the hinges. The door flew off onto the road below.

“Come on!” Rika grabbed the side of the van and swung outside. She was standing on a two-inch metal ledge that ran along the sides of the truck. Gritting her teeth, Wakaba stepped out after her. They were sandwiched between two identical trucks—one just ahead of them, the other a hair behind.

“Do you know who was in each truck?” said Wakaba.

Rika scrunched up her face. “Kaori was with Mai and Alina. I think Satoko, Shoma, and Kolyada ended up together. They took Kaori first because she was the most injured.”

“Okay.” Wakaba touched her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if her dizziness was caused by the blood loss or sheer terror. “You get on that truck in front of us and get ahold of Kaori. Don’t worry about getting out of there yet, just get her heart going. I’ll get the others.”

“I can do it.” Rika smiled—a hopeful, confident smile. “But be careful.”

Wakaba grinned. “I jumped on the back hood of a speeding convertible, remember? I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, enough with the chitchat!” Tatiana Tarasova shouted from inside the van. “Just move before we all die!”

Rika winced. “I think I liked her better before they took the gag off.”

While Rika edged along the side of the van, Wakaba tied a rope to the trailer hitch. She made a loop in the free end, tugged hard on the knot, and threw it at the hood of the other truck. It caught the silver panther hood ornament and the top of the metal grille. Compared to the past seventy hours, this stunt was reasonably safe.

Wakaba swung one leg over the rope and started crawling out towards the other truck. For a moment, she thought she felt the rope unwinding from the trailer hitch. She moved faster, seized the front grille, and jumped onto the hood of the cab. Behind the window, the driver screamed and scrabbled for the machine gun on the seat beside him. Wakaba kicked hard into the windshield, shattering the glass into the man’s lap. Before he could fight back, she thumped him on the head and ran into the back of the van.

“Satoko? Shoma? Alina?”

“Wakaba? We’re here!” Shoma’s hand grabbed her wrist in the dark. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“Wakaba, I would ask you if you’re crazy, but I think we already know the answer to that question,” said Satoko. “Let’s knock out the driver and turn this van around so we can get ahold of the Flying Saucer.”

“Driver’s already out,” said Wakaba.

Shoma was smiling in amazement. “You’re truly savage, you know that?”

Wakaba ducked into the cab of the truck. “All right, who’s going to drive this thing?”

“Please, not Shoma,” Satoko muttered under her breath.

By now, Kolyada had already plopped into the driver’s seat and fastened the seatbelt around his waist. “I know the way. The others will meet up with us in about ten minutes, and we can get to Moscow just in time to stop Arutunian.”

 

Ten minutes and a handful of unconscious guards later, they were cruising through the air in the Flying Saucer. Or rather, they were hurtling sideways over the streets of Vladivostok and trying their best not to die.

“Sorry, there’s no time for smooth flying!” Rika had her arms stuck in the engine up to the elbows, feeding it with fresh lightning. “Hang in there!”

Wakaba’s foot was jammed against the gas pedal so hard she thought it would snap off. There was really no point in even trying to steer this thing at this speed, which was a good thing, because she didn’t know the first thing about how to steer a Flying Saucer. The dashboard was covered in dozens of glowing buttons and levers, and she didn’t want to accidentally fire a missile or something that might get her kicked out of the Samurai. Then again, she was probably already fired for stealing property from the United Nations, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.

Oh, and there was the little issue of Mr. Dean lying unconscious on the floor of the helicopter.

Mai and Shoma were huddled around Kaori. Rika had managed to start her heart with a shock of lightning, and Mai was anxiously counting the heartbeats while Shoma kept saying, “She’ll be fine, she’ll be fine.” Satoko sat at Kaori’s head, sending thoughts of life and survival into Kaori’s brainwaves.

“Was it really necessary to knock him out?” said Alina, gesturing to Mr. Dean. “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”

“I just gave him a little spark,” said Satoko, rubbing her fingertips together. “He practically walked himself onto the plane and lay down all by himself.”

Kolyada scowled. “Well, I still don’t trust those powers of yours. “How come when you tried to interrogate me, it nearly killed me, but when you did it to Polunin, he looked like he was giving a pleasant little speech?” 

Satoko looked down at her hand, still tingling with white energy. “It’s because you were resisting. When I went inside your mind, it felt like your thoughts were shut in a dungeon cell. But with him, it felt like I was walking down a path in the forest. Polunin wanted to tell us. He was…proud.”

“Well, remind me next time to be proud when you try to interrogate me.”

“Um, Satoko?” said Alina. “I think he’s waking up.”

Mr. Dean was stirring on the floor. He jolted up, reaching for the pistol in his jacket pocket, but Wakaba and Kolyada grabbed his arms.

“It’s all right!” said Rika. “We’re the good guys!”

“I know that, I know that.” He shrugged off their hands. “You can’t face Arutunian alone. You’re going to kill yourselves.”

“Alone? There’s eight of us,” said Wakaba, setting the plane to autopilot so she could turn around in her seat. She glanced at Kaori, who was still lying unconscious. “Well, seven and a half.”

“Yes, and Arutunian has the most powerful weapons in the world. These things could level entire cities.”

“Yeah, and somebody needs to stop him,” said Kolyada.

Mr. Dean shook his head. “You don’t get it. Arutunian set this whole thing up so he could get his hands on the missiles. He thought if everyone was chasing Polunin, no one would ever know that he was the mastermind. But now that Polunin has been caught, Arutunian will stop at nothing. He has nothing to lose.”

Wakaba frowned. “Hence why we’re flying this plane to Moscow.”

“I can’t let you do this. Asada needs the Samurai. Someone has to be here to take her place when Moscow blows up.”

“What?” Alina covered her mouth. “What do you mean, when Moscow blows up?”

Mr. Dean winced. “I came across some plans in Arutunian’s bag. I couldn’t read all of them, but it looked like his plan is to bomb the Kremlin, and if he uses the bomb I think he’s using, it’ll obliterate everything within a hundred miles of the place—including Moskvina and Asada.”

Wakaba gripped the back of her seat. “Do they know? Did you tell Moskvina and Asada?”

“That’s why we all came to Asada’s headquarters in the first place. Unfortunately, Arutunian came along and stole the plane so he could shoot you down. But they know what he’s after. They’re leading him off the scent—they told him Polunin wanted to meet inside an underground shelter, where they will detonate the bombs. It will save millions of lives.”

“But not theirs.” Wakaba flipped around in her chair and pressed the gas pedal a little harder. “Let’s go.”


	12. Below the Subway

Wakaba crash-landed the Flying Saucer in the helipad of the Moscow Special Forces Agency. She had been there only once before, when the Samurai had stayed with Commander Moskvina for a week, but she knew the way around. It was eerily empty as she sprinted to the infirmary, Kolyada and Shoma carrying Kaori behind her.

“I’m all right, I’m all right!” said Kaori, flailing her legs. “Rika fixed my heart, so I’ll be perfectly fine to go.”

“Yeah, except for the gaping hole in your back,” said Wakaba. “Alina, get some bandages. Shoma, I need you to stay here and sew her up.”

“Sew her up?” Shoma’s eyes nearly jumped out of his small head. “Agent Black Bond, I don’t know if I can do that, I—”

“It’s just like darning a sock,” said Alina.

Kaori fought as Shoma and Kolyada set her on the gurney. “I said I’m fine! Let’s go get Arutunian! Let’s…” Her eyes rolled back, and her head lolled to one side.

“Keep her here,” said Wakaba. “Rika, Mai, and Satoko will be coming with me. The rest of you need to take care of Kaori.”

“Four of you just for me?” Kaori winced. “Sounds like you’re trying to get rid of them so you have a smaller team.”

“Agent Black Bond is right,” said Mr. Dean. “The only people who have any chance of surviving this are the Samurai. I’ll fly a helicopter over the site and bring some troops for backup.”

Wakaba, Rika, Mai, and Satoko went straight for Moskvina’s collection of military vehicles. Amongst the common tanks and fighter planes sat tiny pods, armored cars that could’ve been easily mistaken for a crate, and a machine that like a computer fastened to a Jet-Ski.

“Well, she sure doesn’t mess around,” said Rika, running her hand over a bicycle-like contraption with a pair of machine guns strapped to the handlebars.

Wakaba stopped in front of an armored car. It had four seats, but the roof was low, so the riders would have to crouch and tuck their heads in like bobsledders. It stood barely three feet tall, and the hodgepodge of controllers made her imagine it was indeed one of Moskvina’s high-speed inventions. “Let’s take this one.”

 

Twenty-one minutes later, Wakaba slammed her foot onto the brake and swung the tiny car to the side of the road. The entrance to the underground shelter was inside the Arbatskaya metro station. The girls filed in, keeping their heads low, and weaved through the crowd to the murals. In Soviet times, the subway stations were covered in stunning artwork to tout the glory of Stalin and Company. Wakaba pressed her hand against a leaf motif, and the wall opened a crack, just wide enough to let them pass through.

Flimsy metal stairs led down into a dank corridor lit by a single light bulb. Wakaba winced as they squeaked under her feet. Just ahead, she could hear voices.

“I don’t understand why Polunin would change the location,” said Arutunian’s gruff voice. “And he’s ten minutes late. Moskvina, why would he send the message to you and not me?”

“I don’t pretend to know what Polunin is thinking,” said Moskvina.

“You’re lying.” Arutunian nearly spat the words in Moskvina’s face. “You set me up!”

Wakaba was now close enough to see Arutunian, Moskvina, and Asada standing about thirty feet away. Moskvina, tiny but fierce, was dressed in a dark blue suit and wore an expression of perfect calm. Asada stood a few feet behind her in white. Arutunian, large and stern in a military uniform, hulked over the two women with one hand hovering over the gun in his pocket.

“General Arutunian, it’s not her fault!” Asada’s posture was confident, but her voice came out almost desperate. “I saw the message. It’s true.”

“Oh, I believe you.” Arutunian stepped closer to Moskvina, but she didn’t back up. “And you know what I think? I think you’re both traitors. I think you’re both working with Polunin. And I’m going to put a stop to it.”

“Now,” Wakaba whispered, drawing her pistols.

In one terrible swoop, he snatched the gun from his pocket and fired at Moskvina’s collarbone. She gasped and collapsed to the floor as another shot struck Asada’s shoulder. Wakaba pulled the triggers of both her pistols simultaneously, sending two shots into Arutunian’s arm and back. He flipped around and shot at her, but Satoko jumped forward, catching the bullet in her chest.

“Satoko!” Mai screamed.

Wakaba shot twice more, grazing Arutunian’s shoulder. Asada staggered forward and fired at his back. Mai sent a barrage of moonbeams at his chest, shoving him backwards. Rika sprang forward, her lightning creating an electric trail in the air, and seized his wrist. As they fought for the gun, shots pinged against the metal ceiling.

“Stand down!” came Mr. Dean’s voice over the microphone. “Arutunian, I repeat: stand down!”

“It’s not working!” said Satoko, crouching on the floor. “We shot him at least six times and he’s not budging.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” said Arutunian. “Young Samurai, you still have so much to learn. Whenever you deal with terrorists, it’s always a good idea to wear a bulletproof vest.”

“Arutunian, stop!” Asada grabbed his collar while Wakaba and Mai closed in. “It’s over. Polunin’s been captured.”

His eyes shone with humor. “You really think I cared about Polunin? Bah. I don’t care if he lives or dies. The whole point was to draw you out of hiding. For years, Ms. Asada here has been working on her little top-secret mission—the Samurai, epic defenders of the universe. You think you’re doing the right thing, and I admire that. But at the end of the day, you’re just the United Nations’ errand runners. They send you out when they have no one else who can help, then leave you to sit in the shadows until the next mission comes. You need something bigger. Together, we could build a new Russia.”

“That’s not how it works!” said Asada. “Operation Samurai was never about glory. It was about protecting the world from people like you.”

Arutunian backhanded her in the face. “You people are so primitive. It takes an entire organization to bring down one rogue criminal who wants some weapons, but I managed to take over the world in three days. Though I’ll admit, Polunin was a very convincing diversion. Kidnapping the prime minister was a nice touch.”

“Where is she?” said Asada. “Arutunian, tell me!”

As he turned his head, Rika closed her fist around his gun, crushing it into a ball of embers. Wakaba stared at him, at this villainous man who had managed to bend a terrorist to his will, and suddenly an idea came to her.

“His legs,” she whispered.

While his head was still turned, she fired one shot into his thigh. He blinked, his face tensing in pain, and she shot again. Mai unleashed a moonbeam into his knee, twisting the tendons until his leg buckled. Stumbling back, he started reaching in his suit pocket for another gun, but Rika sent a bolt of lightning up his arm. He screamed and punched Asada in the face. Wakaba, out of bullets, dropped to the ground and kicked him twice in the shins.

Then a splotch of blood appeared on Arutunian’s neck, an inch above his collar. His eyes opened wide, and he swayed on his knee. His hand flew up to his throat, trying to staunch the blood, but his face stilled, and he fell back onto the concrete floor.

Standing at the back of the room, holding a rifle, was Prime Minister Elena Ilinykh.

Her long dark hair was tangled, her cheeks were smudged with dirt, and her teal sheath dress was dusty and torn at the hem. But her expression was stone cold as she stared down at Arutunian’s body.

“Prime Minister Ilinykh!” said Wakaba. “Are you all right?”

She frowned. “I’m a lot better now that he’s dead.” Her eyes fell on Moskvina. “Is she…?”

“Yes, I’m alive,” Moskvina murmured from the floor. “I served thirty years for the Soviet Union and another thirty for Russia. It takes more than one bullet to stop me.”

“We need medical assistance ASAP,” said Wakaba. “Moskvina and Agent White Sparrow are injured. Dean, do you copy?”

“This is Dean,” he said into the microphone. “Yes, I copy. Sending emergency medical assistance right away.” 

Mai was hovering over Satoko, trying to staunch her wound with the glowing light of a moonbeam. “I think she’ll make it. I can stop the bleeding, but it’s not going to be pretty.”

“Nothing about this job is pretty,” said Wakaba. “Except Prime Minister Ilinykh.”

Upon hearing her name, the prime minister smiled. “Well, there’s nothing better than a rescue team that thinks you’re beautiful. Oh, wait, that’s right—I rescued you, not the other way around.”

Wakaba laughed. “Yeah, we would’ve been dead without you. But how did you get ahold of that gun? I thought he had you sealed up someplace with no weapons.”

Ilinykh tossed her hair. “It really wasn’t that hard. This place has more weapons than the United Nations armory. After I cut the ropes off my hands with a nail I found on the floor, I had no problem finding a gun somewhere.”

Rika frowned. “So the top six agents in the world couldn’t kill Arutunian, but an non-enhanced prime minister with a rifle could?”

Wakaba shook her head. “The United Nations really should pay us more for what we do.”

Kaori’s voice crackled through Wakaba’s earpiece. “Did we do it? Did we do it? Mr. Dean was saying we did it. Did we do it?”

Wakaba smiled. “Yes, Kaori, we did it.”


	13. Epilogue

“And that, my friends, is the story of how a k-pop band captured a terrorist.”

Wakaba stood at the podium before the United Nations Special Forces Council. Asada, Moskvina, Dean, Gailhaguet, and the new American delegate—Colonel Evan Lysacek—filled up the front row. Just behind them sat the Samurai, Alina, Kolyada, Zhenya, and Prime Minister Ilinykh. Kaori and Satoko were still bandaged, and Moskvina had an IV attached to her arm.

“Yeah, BTS has nothing on us,” Kaori whispered to Mai. Mai giggled before a stern-looking politician groaned behind her.

Wakaba cleared her throat. “We would like to thank everyone who helped us on this mission. Many brave people risked their lives in the line of duty to protect our world. We now ask for a moment of silence in honor of Agent Yuzuru Hanyu, who was killed when our plane was attacked.”

The crowd fell silent, except Gailhaguet, who sniffed in annoyance. He was probably missing one of his underhanded meetings for this.

“We set out with one goal: to defeat Sergei Polunin,” said Wakaba. “We believed him to be the greatest threat to our security, and he was indeed a dangerous criminal. But we cannot neglect the enemy within our own walls—General Rafael Arutunian, who was not only a member of the United Nations, but one of the five most trusted representatives of this entire organization. I fear he is not the only mole among us. He spent many years plotting his takeover, and it would be naïve to expect no further conflict. Last week was a victory, but this is not the last battle we will face. Therefore, the Samurai will continue to operate as a stealth team as long as we are needed. I wish all of you health and good fortune. Thank you.”

 

“That was some speech!” said Kaori. For the past two hours, she had talked of nothing but the convention, even though she herself hadn’t spoken a word. “Did you see the way Ms. Asada was clapping? She was so proud!”

The six Samurai were lounging in Asada’s recreation room. Wakaba and Rika were lying on the couches, Kaori was chattering to Mai (and everyone else who would listen), and Shoma and Satoko were playing poker.

“A full house? You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Shoma, tossing his cards on the table. “I give up. I haven’t won a single hand. Really, Satoko, how did you get so good at poker?”

Kaori giggled. “It’s because she’s reading your mind, Shoma.”

“What?” Shoma touched his temple, frowning. “Is that why I’m getting a headache?”

“Satoko, that’s cheating,” said Rika. “Aren’t you the one who says we should always play by the rules?”

Satoko shrugged. “I decided to try loosening up.”

Shoma rubbed his forehead. “I lost thirty yen on this game!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back,” said Satoko. “But only because you’re cute.”

Kaori and Mai glanced at each other meaningfully, then covered their mouths to stop their giggles.

“No, no, I’ll earn it back, every last sen,” said Shoma. “We’re going to try some Mario Kart. For cash.”

They abandoned the card table for the Nintendo game in the corner. Kaori perched on the armrest of the couch. “Wakaba, you’re awfully quiet. What’s up?”

Wakaba laughed. “I’m just tired! It takes a lot of energy to hunt down an international criminal and a United Nations councilman.”

“Same,” said Mai. “I’m asking Ms. Asada for a month off.”

“You can’t do that!” Kaori elbowed her playfully. “There’s no rest for the wicked!”

“Not fair!” Satoko cried from the other side of the room. “I’m injured! How am I supposed to drive this kart thing when I’m injured?”

“Shoma’s going to get his money back real quick,” Wakaba whispered to Rika. “Satoko always finishes last in Mario Kart. She can’t think fast unless there’s a bullet aimed at her teammate.”

“She’s not so bad,” said Kaori. “She can be a pain sometimes, but she’s just looking out for us.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Go away,” Wakaba mumbled sleepily. “We’re not going on duty until we’ve had a proper vacation.”

A key turned in the lock, and Ms. Asada stepped into the room, smiling. “Why did you assume I was giving you work? I came to give you three months off.”

“Three months?” Rika sat up straight. “Really, we don’t need three months, we’re—”

Wakaba elbowed her in the gut.

“We’d love that,” Rika squeaked.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all the friends, mutuals, and even strangers who responded positively to this story! Your support really helped motivate me to keep writing it.


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